#cos they had finished post by mid april

[charmac]

I know there’s no way for you to know for sure, but based on your Sunny knowledge, when do you think season 17 will air? I can’t wait!

Back in June, Glenn said Spring 2025 seems feasible for Season 17 airing, but it's really ultimately up to the Network. They will definitely wrap filming in December and we typically see FX air a season 2ish months after wrapping, so my best guess is March-ish?

(IMO they could push to air it by late January, to be closer to the Abbott crossover episode airing, but that seems highly unlikely... I'm very much hoping they don't hold the season until the 24-25 television cycle begins (June). I really don't think they would, but it is always a possibility)

[asktheblinddetectivemlp]

Life Update & Moving Forward

TL;DR: no im not killing the blog. if i have to, im going to finish the story regardless and drastically reduce the amount of panels im drawing.

WHERE DID YOU GO ADROMI?? Well, around mid April 2023 I developed carpel tunnel and had to step away from this blog. I KNOW a classic artist move. I still cant feel my pinky and index finger sometimes, but I am not in pain constantly.

It's doing a lot better, but I am playing the spoons game with my health. I started working full time and the SPOONS MAN.

I did some writing during this time, and I got my irl friend (@rosetintedart) onboard for this project as a co-author / editor. She may help me out with some of the art, but that depends where her time.

the plan moving forward? well, I would love to finish this arc that we are in as a comic. It feels like a good natural stopping point. We are getting towards the end, so it seems reasonable. I think I may not color all of it if I still cant keep up with updates.

I have a second arc planned (and is the payoff to a lot of buildup in arc 1), but I don't see myself having the time/commitment to finish it. I think I am going to post dialogue scrips with key panels drawn.

If I have to tap out and abandon this blog, youre going to get the google doc of a lifetime with the rest of the story with drawings.

It's crazy that some of you have been around since I was a senior in high school. I keep my information off the internet since I love my privacy, but I have changed sooososo much between then and now. Now I have a degree and a job... and we are all sitting here playing with plastic toy ponies.

Thanks for being patient, its going to be sooo worth it when its done.

-Adromi

[fowl-leaf]

my 2023 summary of art!

Template:here

still not consistently posting anywhere, but I like doing these. they're fun there's a lot of things i would've liked to include but had to exclude, due to not being shareable on this account. maybe i'll have more stuff next year!

this is long, so details under the cut

JANUARY silly lizard oc i generally dont do much single line hatching, so it was nice to fiddle with it this time

FEBRUARY the wittle scrunkly lizard last time i drew this one, they were an lps shitpost, so its nice to like draw them normally lol

MARCH herman is running out of time glasses axolotl but make him neon idk

APRIL fancy calico i honestly dont know whats up with the clothes, i just kinda drew whatever tbh

MAY yippie!! toontown oc! was playing ttcc w/shard and co, this is the character i ended up making i also got covid around april-march iirc so i was feeling horrid for a while (and the remaining symptoms didnt clear up till like june)

JUNE an oc i got years ago but didnt have the confidence to draw for a while lmao anyways i like her colors and shape, she's fun

JULY mandatory artfight posting this was one of the last ones i did! ocs belong to pookapooka and they were so fun to paint

idk if ill be doing artfight again tbh. ive been doing it consistently since sun vs moon but its honestly felt less fun ever since the tiktok invasion`and how ppls behavior has changed, and especially since the whole ownership thing that happened mid fight this year. (not interested in any of the alternatives ive seen either bc they have the same issues, notably worse issues, or are not furry friendly) but tbh that might just be me being disenchanted with online art spaces due to the intensifying shittification of basically everything, fucking rip

AUGUST ring but hes going to jail (again but for real this time) the staxie monthly prompt was barbie mugshots but i . . . i did this with ring and lumos and promptly forgor to do this with cakes and ale like i was planning to lmfao im actually gonna watch the barbie movie tonight, renting it so i can watch it on the big tv (didnt watch in theaters bc expensive (movie tickets are generally 15-25 bucks in my area (compared to the 5-10 in my aunt's area (renting is cheaper per person)), and they changed the chairs to these weird uncomfy pleather recliners that make my skin crawl to "justify the price raise" + i hate sitting for more than an hour i need water, bathroom, stretch, and snack breaks))

SEPTEMBER ganache went over the hedge was very busy w/projects so i did little casual art this was inspired by me comparing the over the hedge version of supermarket by ben folds (upbeat & high energy) vs the one by the clash (melancholy + commercial-induced agony) ever since then i cant stop thinking abt how much the lemon demon guy's voice sounds like the fucking clash guy sdjkhfkjsd also over the hedge was one of my favorite movies as a kid and i watched it at least 10 times before we had to return the dvd to netflix. i also regularly played the flash games on the site until i forgot about it after finding out about miniclip + notdoppler from other kids and decided to use those for flash games instead bc more options lol

OCTOBER dta img for a new oc i got, funny long neck budgie thingy busy w/projects again so little casual art had to use old mini tablet bc previous tablet was completely unusable fucking rip

NOVEMBER ganache + cactus pony, they want to know if you have any bubblegum. do you? busy w/projects again so little casual art doodle i made in heavypaint (one of the old layerless versions, i bought a lisence for it a while ago.) i got a new tablet on black friday since the mini tablet was horrible + my broken tablet was making me work very slow

DECEMBER ring in the void (this is lore accurate) or as nic put it, "fucked up twilight sparkle" lol busy w/projects + gifts so little casual art i actually sketched this w/the mini tablet, but didnt finish it up till getting the new tablet

---

for reading this far, you get to see amogus.

i would've put amogus whisper on the chart but decided against it since im not done with that one yet lmao

[jamiebamberdaily]

Happy New Year from JamieBamberDaily!

As a new year approaches, it’s time for our annual review of Jamie and his year!

The early months were quiet and it wasn’t until March that the first thing came in the form of a brilliant interview with Mark & Me Podcast. Earlier in the month, both Jamie and Kerry joined Kerry's former Bad Girls co-star Vicky Alcock at her acting class. According to a post over Christmas, "Jamie came to join us at Acting Up having written a fantastic screenplay 🤫 He shared his work with the actors- we did a full tableread then improvised some of the scenes over the month. Kerry Norton and Jamie then came back to watch what the actors had created. They were extremely impressed by their creativity, focus and understanding. Both Jamie and Kerry gave them advice, experience and understanding of what is required within the industry."

April was a busier month for Jamie. He celebrated his 49th birthday which we once again marked with a birthday video. The following couple of days saw Jamie travel over to Cannes to appear at the 5th Canneseries Festival with Lucie Lucas and Tamara Marthe to discuss his upcoming role in Cannes Confidential. Then April 21st saw the release of Titanic 666 on Tubi TV, the film was released exactly 110 years to the day of the original sinking of the Titanic.

May was also a chaotic month for Jamie and his work. May 2nd saw the release of the first episode of two of Jamie’s projects which were filmed last year; Signora Volpe and DI Ray. DI Ray continued for the following three days on ITV and Signora Volpe episodes released the next two Mondays. Also on the same day, Jamie started the first day filming of Cannes Confidential.

June was less busy, with only the announcement of his involvement on the judging panel of the Faber’s inaugural Imagined Futures Prize.

Filming on Cannes Confidential finished in late July after a incredible 3 month shoot. While DI Ray released on DVD in the UK.

A quiet few months followed until late October when horror film, The Lair released in the US after a few rounds at a few film festivals including FrightFest in London.

Finally, December saw the announcement of not one, but two Jamie roles for the new year. BBC’s spin-off to Death In Paradise, Beyond Paradise which he filmed around September-November in Cornwall, and Who Is Erin Carter (also known as Palomino) which was filmed in Barcelona, Spain in mid-to-late August. Also in that month Jamie returned to the stage for one night only in Uncle Glen’s Menagerie which took place at the Arcola Theatre in London, the event was in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

We are very much looking forward to Jamie’s projects to come in 2023, and with three announced already to come, we’re sure it’s going to be another busy year for him!

So to end the year, we would like to wish you all a very happy new year and a positive 2023!

Jemma and Sophie. xx

[joonsrack]

+Pairing: Namjoon x fem!reader, Taehyung x fem!reader (one-sided), 

+Genre: Angst, humor, fluff, two-shots, sfw

+Word count: ~8.5k

+Warning: Mention of past recreational drug use (weed), blood mention (nosebleed), lot of pinning 

+Rating: Pg13

+Summary: 

Your roommate and long-time one-sided crush disappears one morning, leaving behind only a post-it note stating two things:

1. He’s off to finally meet the love of his life whom he met on the internet, might take the whole summer;

2. He’s sub-renting his room while he’s gone, don’t worry it’s all taken care of;

+A/N: Just six days late, nothing too major. This is the first part of a two-shot I’m writing for the bangtanscenery collab: April Shower & May Flower. This didn’t turn out as expected, but it is what it is lmao. Thank you to @gguksgalaxy for helping me brainstorm, and @spicykoreantatertots and @starlightseoks​ for reading over my stuff, fixing my mistakes and giving me the validation I needed to carry on 💖

The first day of summer vacation is supposed to be a good day, a great day even. No more finals, no more studying; just warm weather, lazing around, and maybe picking up some shifts at the grocery store.

Today is all of that, but it’s also the worst day of your life.

It had started as it was supposed to; no alarm clock, just your body waking up by itself. You had messed around on your phone for a while, not caring about the time you were wasting. After the last three weeks of nerve-wracking deadlines and exams, you had deserved a break. The next thing on your schedule was work on Thursday, meaning you had two days completely to yourself. You had big plans for these two days; doing absolutely nothing.

But then, as the day was slowly shifting from morning into noon, the stillness of the house cued you that something was… not right.

As you have come to learn, your roommate, Taehyung, is not one to go about his summer day without his 20 minutes of morning stretching on zen nature sounds. Sometimes you join him, sometimes you don’t. He has a morning routine that he sticks to a T, and in a way, you find the sound of him doing his routine comforting.

Two years you’ve been living together now; or well, almost two years.

You had met in your first semester of freshman year, both residing in the same co-ed dorm. The horror of shared bathroom, kitchen, and living areas had prompted you two to throw caution to the wind and start living together, even if you were both still technically strangers. Two years later, the concept of being a stranger with Taehyung is so far fetched, it’s like you’ve never not known each other.

Which is why this comes as a slap to your face.

After finally making it out of your room and to the kitchen, you find in lieux of your roommate, a single post-it note, stuck to his old fashioned shelf stereo.

There are barely fifteen words on it, but that’s enough to destroy your post-final, beginning of summer haze:

Going back to Korea for the summer, I’m finally going to meet Busan_baby!

I sub-rented my room, he should get here soon :) xx

Objectively, Taehyung doing spontaneous things is not out of character. But this… Leaving for a whole summer, without even hinting at it...

You had plans for this summer. Plans that consisted of spending quality time with him, and maybe, possibly, finally confessing to him. Him leaving kind of put a wrench into that.

Plus.

Busan_baby…

The mysterious internet friend that’s been plaguing Taehyung’s mind since they met during an Overwatch raid, whatever that means.

Your two-year crush had only evolved in the time you were living together, and a part of you had become possessive overtime. So these days, only the mention of Tae’s friend’s username was enough to put you in the worst of moods. And now you’re going to lose your summer with your roommate to her? To a perfect stranger living on the other side of the planet?

And the whole sub-renting situation...you’re boiling. He just... rented his room. To someone you might not know, with whom you’ll be stuck all summer.

The first day of summer vacation is supposed to be a good day. This, this is not a good day.

Your first reaction is to, well, do nothing. You feel tears of frustration welling up in your eyes, and you recognize the burning sensation in your chest as anger. You feel a little ridiculous; you’re always factoring Taehyung into your plans, always have, but clearly he isn’t giving you the same kind of courtesy. You grab your phone, knowing he hasn’t sent you any text, but checking anyways. You have no idea what time he left, he could already be in the plane for all you know, but you send him a message anyways.

Me 1:27pm: Is this a joke?

You wipe a tear away, trying to breathe through the negativity. He must have had his reason, he does have his whole family in Korea, maybe they’re the real reason he left and he’s just joking with you.

Just as the thought is starting to make sense, you hear the key in the lock, and your heart starts beating double time.

It was all the prank, he’s not leaving for real, it’s him coming back to surprise you. See? You had nothing to worry about. The smile grows on your face, and you quickly dry the tears track on your face, not wanting Taehyung to tease you about them.

But doubt quickly sets in your mind when it’s clearly taking too long for whoever on the other side to open the door. The bolt is old, and it had taken you and Taehyung weeks before you had been able to know the right way to unlock it without struggling.  

You can hear them struggling with the key, rattling the doorknob, until finally the bolt clicks into place and the door swiftly swings open. Obviously, whoever is on the other side wasn’t expecting it to give, and they stumble past the doorsill, barely missing the floor by a few centimeters.

You’re shocked into stillness, watching the catastrophe unveil.

Mystery man then trips on the entry mats, throwing him forward once again until his head gets dangerously close to the kitchen table; but like a seasoned tripper, he flips his body mid-plunge, landing hard but cushioned by the shag carpet of the living room.

He groans, rolling on his side holding his head in between his hands, and you’re too shocked to do anything but stare in both horror and wonder.

The living trainwreck on the floor doesn’t seem to have noticed your presence yet, and you’re inclined to just lay low and wait until you can observe more accidental gymnastics, but you realize that would be weird. Would it be weirder than everything you’ve just witnessed though?

You clear your throat to announce your presence, and he freezes, opens one eye, spots you, closes it again, and groans even louder.

“Is there any chance you just materialized now and missed all of that.”

You shrug emphatically.

“I can lie if that makes you feel better.”

He sits up, smiling grimly and resigned, like this is not the first time this has happened.

You would go offer him a hand but you also have no idea who this man is, what he’s doing in your apartment, with a key, and seemingly enough bad luck to bring this whole building down by himself.

“So… Who might you be?”

He looks up to you in confusion, and for a second you think you also see hurt flicker across his eyes, but it disappears as fast as it appeared.

“Taehyung… didn’t tell you?”

Right, sub-renting.

You grab the post-it off the stereo and wave it in his direction, letting him connect the dots.

“He just did.” You say, voice dripping with sarcasm, and he winces, noticing how you’re clearly unhappy with the whole ordeal.

“I thought you knew...I... fuck. I can leave if you want? You don’t look like you agreed to this.”

You sigh, feeling bad that you made him feel bad. It’s not his fault after all. Plus, him sub-renting means he most probably doesn’t have a place to stay right now.

“No, no. Of course not. It’s not your fault, I’m just… he didn’t even tell me he was leaving. It’s a lot.”

Silence fills the room, and he smiles awkwardly at you before dusting himself off. You take the opportunity to finally properly look at him.

He looks vaguely familiar now, with his tall body, long limbs and soft brown hair. He’s wearing grandfather clothes, but it’s strangely fitting with his energy. The glasses perched on his nose are slightly crooked, but it doesn’t like it’s from the fall. It looks permanent.

If he’s Taehyung’s friend, you probably saw him around Uni or something.

“So, I still don’t know your name?” You finally break the silence, and he looks startled by the question, pushing the glasses up his nose.

“Kim Namjoon. Well, Namjoon Kim here.” He finishes with a faint blush on his cheeks, and you nod, well aware of the whole last name difference. You’ve been living with Taehyung for two years after all.

“I’m going to try calling him, you can...get your luggage in I guess.”

“His plane was leaving 3 hours ago, I doubt you’ll be able to reach him.” He says sheepishly, as if that was his fault.

You pinch your lips in anger containment, not needing Namjoon to watch you slowly lose your sanity. You feel a surge of dark emotions invading your chest, so you have to make your escape swift.

“Cool, nice. Ok. Well, I need to... be in my room. If you have any questions just knock on my door. Or call my name.”

You’re already off into angst world, making your way to your room, so you miss Namjoon’s parting words;

“But... you haven’t told me your name, y/n.”

You feel the need to grieve the summer that could have been, so you do.

The first stage is denial.

It’s a little hard to deny though, with Taehyung gone and Namjoon currently moving into his room, so you jump straight to anger.

You would feel bad for Namjoon, you didn’t even show him to Taehyung’s room, and your welcome was pretty cold. But you can’t be blamed, this was sprung on you. You were blindsided; betrayed; fooled.

You try to remember your chats with Taehyung in the last few days, but everything is covered by a mist of confusion. The last few weeks are blurred and blended together, a mess of studying, late nights, nervous breakdowns; so you and Taehyung were not exactly talking. You were more...existing in the same space. Or crying in the same space, really.

But still, you know that if Taehyung had mentioned his plans to disappear for the summer you would have surely remembered.

You write an angry text a hundred words long, fueled by the horrible feeling of having been wronged and a need for vindication.

You don’t send the text because you know at the bottom of your heart you’re being overly dramatic, but it’s still therapeutic to act like you’re going to send it to him.

Then comes bargaining.

You write another text, this one more conciliating. You promise to be a better roommate, to stop bunching up your socks and leaving them in the cracks of the couch (although he does that too, the hypocrite), to stop stealing the Korean snacks his mom sends send him once a month (which is a big commitment; they’re just so good, you can’t find this quality in your uni town), and to stop using up all the hot water in the morning.

You also do not send this text. There’s a little too many promises in it you just know you won’t be able to hold.

You’re transitioning into the depressive stage when you hear a crash coming from the living room, followed by a few curses.

With the whole thing you witnessed earlier, you’re surprised that nothing fell victim to Namjoon’s long limbs sooner. He clearly has coordination issues; you would be worried, except pretty much everything decorating the apartment belongs to Taehyung.

Everything except…

There’s a bad feeling creeping up in your stomach. You don’t have the worst luck in life, but you also don’t have the best. And bad things usually happen in a group of three.

Taehyung ditching you for the summer, Taehyung clearly being fooled by some internet catfisher, and….

You jump to your feet, following the sound to the living room. There, your new roommate is kneeling on the floor, gathering the pieces of dried macaroni scattered around him. You can see the picture frame on the floor, the glass cracked in the middle.

The first day you had moved in together, Taehyung and you had taken a picture together with a single-use camera. You were both exhausted from the move, boxes laying all around, but beaming with satisfaction.

You had gotten a frame for it but Taehyung thought it was too bare, so one time, completely high as a kite, he’d decorated it with macaroni and hot glue.

You hold it very dear, and it has a central place in the living room. Or well, it did.

The macaroni remains on the floor is probably the saddest thing you’ve ever seen, and you can’t bear the sight of them, so you give a parting blank look to Namjoon, who’s looking up at you pale as a ghost, and you walk back to your room.

Alright, so stage one of grief; denial.

Belting your heart out to Italian music is usually your way of dealing with sorrow, but with a new and strange presence in your home, it probably won’t be happening for a while, so you settle for laying in your bed, with your curtain pulled closed and some Andrea Bocelli blasting from your earphone. It works for a while, until your stomach reminds you that you haven’t eaten all day.

You sigh, bracing yourself for yet another reminder that you’ve been basically abandoned by the possible love of your life. You come out of your room dragging your feet, only to be basically assailed but the unmistakable smell of frying garlic. You’re both disgusted and intrigued, so you pick up your pace to the kitchen, finding Namjoon there, sweat on his forehead, with a concentrated look on his face. His glasses are hanging at the tip of his nose, probably having slipped there from the sweat, and you find yourself endeared by the sight. Only for a quick second though.

“Are you sure it’s safe for you to be left alone in the kitchen?” You ask, and he whips his head towards you, clearly startled by your presence.

“Well…” He says, followed by a deprecating laugh, and you kind of feel like an asshole. He probably broke the frame by accident, and it’s not like it’s his fault that Taehyung bailed on your summer plans to go run off to who knows who the fuck busan_baby really is.

“What are you cooking?” You ask, trying to change the subject, and he looks grateful but also very nervous.

“Hm, well Taehyung told me once garlic pasta was your favorite, and since I was trying to apologize for, well the frame but also just being sprung onto you so suddenly, I figured I could cook your favorite dish...”

You nod, but you can’t contain a snort, and Namjoon’s expression becomes worried.

“Taehyung thinks that because that’s the only thing he can successfully cook, and the first time he did I didn’t have the heart to tell him I can’t stand garlic.”

Namjoon looks at the dish, then back at you, then back at the dish. You see all the energy drain from his body, face falling as he groans in frustration.

“It’s fine you didn’t know.” You try to sound as apologetic as you can, but it doesn’t seem to be helping, and he moves the pan from the burner, closing the heat, plastering a hand on his face.

“This is going all wrong. This day is just mess after mess. I’m so sorry I’m usually much better at human interaction, I’m just very nervous right now, I guess.”

You want to ask what he’s so nervous about, but you feel like it might not help his distraught state. “Ok so, clearly this was doomed from the start.” You say, and his face falls even more, so you hurry to finish your thought before he can jump to conclusions.

“You showed up while I was having a horrible day; I had no idea you were coming; you...tripped and fell in front of me, probably making you feel embarrassed, then all this nervous energy lead to you having another clumsy accident, and I probably didn’t help with my overall coldness… and now, this, which again, is totally not your fault…” You let the silence hang for a little longer before you finish your thought. “ I think we should start over.”

“...What?”

“Yeah, I think we should start over. Like, come here.” You wave your hand in a motion for him to follow after you, and he does, albeit definitely looking reluctant.

You lead him to the front door, opening it, waiting for him to get the cue. He stands there, looking a little dumbfounded, glimpsing down at his slipper clad feet.

“Come on, only for a second.”

He finally follows your directions, stepping outside in the hallway, and you close the door behind him. After a good 30 second of silence, you realize he might be dumber than he looks.

“You’re supposed to knock.” You say just loud enough for him to hear on the other side, and there’s a split second before he finally does.

You throw the door open with the biggest smile you can muster, and he stares at you in actual worry.

“Hello Namjoon Kim, nice to meet you! Taehyung totally told me you were coming! Come on in!”

Namjoon finally catches up, pinching his lips to stop himself from smiling.

“Nice to meet you,-” He greets back, taking a step into the apartment, but the sole of his slipper gets caught on the doorsill, ripping it off.

He stares down at his slippers in betrayal, and you have to bite the inside of your cheeks to hold back a cackle.

“At this point, I don’t know how to convince you I’m not like this 24/7.” He says, and he looks a little bit more relaxed than before, which is good.

“I’m sorry to say that ship has sailed.”

Going to sleep at five in the morning is never the right decision, even when you have nothing planned, but the prospect of watching Hannah Brown finally eliminating Luke P off The Bachelorette is just too good, keeping you wide awake until you finally get the satisfaction of seeing the smug smile being wiped off his face. Taehyung was so looking forward to this, cursing out the man after every episode, and not having him by your side, yelling incoherently at your computer screen, definitely made you sad.

There's also the whole waiting-for-a-text-that-never-came thing.

You know his flight landed, you looked at the flight time between where you are and Incheon airport. The realization that you weren’t even worth an “I’ve just landed” text is enough to ruin you Luke P elimination afterglow, sending you straight to sleep.

So being rudely awoken at 9 a.m., eyes sore from the lack of sleep and maybe some possible tears of frustration, is not the best feeling.

At first you think you dreamed it, a loud crash from somewhere in the apartment, but then the groans of pain that follows are sounding pretty damn real.

You throw the comforter off, jumping out of bed in the same breath, trying to locate the source of the commotion but still woozy with sleep, and you find its origin in the bathroom;

Very naked, save for the shower curtain draped over the figure.

Namjoon squeals at the sight of you, making sure all the important bits are covered with the curtain that he probably dragged in his apparent fall, half of it still hanging off the pole.

Your sleep-deprived brain slowly catches up to the situation, and you slap both hands over your eyes, turning around with the intention to get out of dodge, only to walk straight into the door frame. The impact makes you lose your balance, the unforgiving tiles making contact with your ass at the speed of light. There’s a throbbing pain in your backside and there’s definitely something dripping from your nose. Another beautiful start to your summer vacation.

It’s your turn to groan, holding your head back to stop the blood from dripping all over your PJs. There’s wet fumbling in the general area of the shower, the sound of the water being cut off and then a moment later, a very naked man appears in your field of vision.

“Hum.” Is all you say, as he snatches his boxer brief from the counter, slipping them on in a flash. But you’ve seen. You’ve witnessed. You’re a changed person now.

“I forgot my towel.” He answers back, face so red it looks like it must hurt. There’s still shampoo suds in his wet hair, dripping down his forehead, neck, and shoulders, but he doesn’t seem to care as he grabs the toilet paper roll, offering it to you.

“Are you ok?” he asks with concern in his voice. He’s kneeling in front of you, skin glistening, and the sight he makes doesn’t help with your blood pressure. His handsomeness didn’t escape your notice, but this….this is a little overwhelming.

“I’ve known you for less than 24 hours and I’ve already seen your junk; I’m great.”

He looks a little thrown by what you’ve just said, but you can blame it on a concussion later, so you’re not too worried.

“Lean forward and breath through your mouth,” He says, choosing to ignore your comment. You follow his recommendation, pinching your nose.

“You seem familiar with nosebleeds.” You tease, knowing full well he’s clearly the clumsy type.

“I’ve had my share of encounters with flat surfaces.”

“So are you gonna tell me what possessed you to shower in the middle of the night?”

“Is 9 a.m. the middle of the night?” He asks, a grin playing at his lips.

“It sure is during summer vacation.”

Namjoon chooses to ignore your admission of being a living, breathing, couch potato.

“I wanted to go get a new pair of slippers, maybe a new frame as well. I obviously need to add a new shower curtain to the list.”

You look up at the way his tone goes slightly somber from irritation, and you’re having none of that;  it’s 9 am, middle of the night, and all you want right now is everything to be happy and breezy.

“Do you mind if I tag along? I wanted to get a corkboard for all my pictures, so I won’t need a new frame actually. We could go get some middle of the night breakfast too.”

His eyes light up, a new energy filling the room.

“Of course! You can, totally.”

His metaphorical tail seems to be wagging, and you’re a little confused about the source of his sudden excitement, but he seems to be in a good mood so that’s the important part here.

“Alright then, I’ll let you finish your shower- oh my god, wait. Are you ok? I heard you fall; that did not sound like a painless descent.”

Namjoon winces, rubbing at the back of his head like he’s suddenly reminded of the pain.

“I’ll survive with only slight bruising, it’s all good.”

You nod, relieved he didn’t hurt himself seriously.

“Let’s get you some bubble wrap while we’re there.” You tease, and he rolls his eyes, probably having heard that one before.

There’s this moment of silence where neither of you are moving, and you’re wondering what he’s waiting for to go back in the shower.

“So...are you waiting to get another peek at my junk, or?” He teases.

You blush, staring at him dumbfounded. Your sleepy brain says yes, but your pride says no.

“Right, let me get out of here.”

You take your roll of toilet paper with you as you leave, pride almost intact.

Both of your loudly growling stomachs make the decision for the order of things, and your first stop is the cheap dinner a few streets down. The usual grumpy waiter that you’ve grown fond of is on shift, and his eyes zeroes straight on you two the second you step in.

His regular glare is already pretty intimidating, but the intensity of his stare is enough to make you want to take a menu and hide behind. Instead you walk with Namjoon to the table you usually sit at with Taehyung.

“Hey Joon.” Is the first thing Yoongi says, throwing the menu on the table with all the lack of grace in the world. Namjoon salutes him back with the ease of someone who’s used to being the target of Yoongi’s laser focus. You deduce they’re friends, by the way they seem to have a silent conversation with their eyes.

He switches his focus to you after a beat, and you gulp loudly, confused by the inquisition in his stare.

“Hi Y/N, where’s your tragic love story?”

Your jaw drops to the table, shocked by Yoongi’s blunt call out of your unrequited love for Taehyung. You two often come to eat here, but clearly you come too often if Yoongi figured you out so accurately.

“Jesus am I that obvious?” You mutter, picking up a menu to avoid looking at either man. You don’t need to see Namjoon's reaction when learning you’re crushing on your roommate who’s also one of his friends.

Yoongi snatches the menu out of your hands, having none of that.

“The usual I presume?” He asks snapingly, throwing one last unimpressed look at Namjoon before walking away.

Namjoon waits before he’s out of earshot to sigh. “Who pissed in his cereal this morning?” he scoffs, trying to lighten the mood, and you’re grateful for his attempt but you’re also feeling pretty shitty; why do your feelings for Taehyung seem so obvious to everyone but Taehyung himself?

“Well, I guess the elephant is out of the bag”, you say with fake enthusiasm. You want to be mad at Yoongi for his brusque ways, but Namjoon would probably have figured it out one way or another. This is kind of ripping the bandaid in a way.

There’s another beat of silence before Namjoon clears his throat, and you brace yourself for what he’s going to say, which is why what he asks comes as a surprise.

“Are you ok?”

His voice is empathic, genuine.

You look up to him, eyes a little glossy.

He’s got a kind face; a dimple here, soft corner smile there; eyes searching but not judging, the crooked glasses giving him a nerdy look. Yet, you’ve...seen. There’s nothing nerdy about the rest of him.

You smile sadly, biting your lips while looking back down at the table. You’ve known him for less than 24 hours and you already feel like Namjoon is the kind of person you can confide in, and before you know it, words are tumbling off your tongue.

“I guess… It just sucks that I was not even worth a ‘I’ve just landed text’. Or even better, him telling me in person that he was leaving for the summer, completely ruining all the plans we made together.” Namjoon nods along with your confession, and once you open your mouth, you just can’t shut it. “Like I’m always making sure he’s included in all of my planifications, and I always go beyond to do stuff that he likes… Like I’m sorry but I hated doing pottery, like, I suck at it. All I made always ended up having a vaguely phallic shape and I’m pretty sure the teacher was judging me, but I still put through three months of pottery class, which were very expensive by the way, because I knew Taehyung would love that. And the Pasta! I hate garlic, I can’t stand it, but I still told him it was my favorite since it’s the only thing he can cook!”

Namjoon clears his throat, looking around at the people starting to take notice of your meltdown. You were getting increasingly louder, you realize, so you sigh, letting the tension escape your body with a deep breath.

Yoongi stops by the table to drop two cups of coffee, raising an eyebrow at you, to which you answer with a glare of your own. He walks away with an evil glint in his eyes, and you already know what’s about to happen. You still risk a small sip of the steaming coffee, only to spit it back into the cup, face void of emotion.

Namjoon winces at you, offering you some napkins for the drops dripping down your chin.

“He put mustard in it, didn’t he?” He asks while you wipe your mouth, then taking your water to wash down the acre taste.

You nod slowly.

“He’s got a weird way to comfort his friends.”

You nod again, but grabbing his cup at the same time. “Do you mind?” You ask, and he agrees enthusiastically, only to frown when he sees what you do with it next.

You grab the table syrup, dripping some all over Namjoon’s coffee cup handle. You put it back on Namjoon’s side of the table, smiling warmly at him.

“Where were we?” You ask cheerfully.

“I think he might just ban me from the Dinner.” Namjoon says in a daze, looking back at where Yoongi is throwing daggers at the both of you from the window, wiping his sticky finger on his apron in vain; You know this stuff is impossible to get rid of.

You knew Yoongi would expect your handle to be sticky after the stunt he pulled, which is why you did it on Namjoon’s cup instead. You make sure to send Yoongi your most radiant smile as you walk away, waving. You should probably avoid the dinner for a few weeks.

But now, belly full of good food, mood lightened, you can go on your productive day of buying stuff. You take the bus to the closest Target, a comfortable chatter between the two of you, when something suddenly hits you between the bedroom aisle and the bathroom aisle.

“Now hold on a second; I just realized I never properly introduced myself. I mean obviously you already know my name, since Taehyung seems to have talked about me, and well, Yoongi used my name earlier too. But still... Wow, I’m so sorry I'm the worst new roommate ever.”

Namjoon shakes his head no, fiddling with the brand new slippers he picked up on the way.

“It’s...fine. Actually, well. I was hesitant to tell you since I don’t want you to feel bad about it but... we’ve already been introduced. Also we shared like, three classes so far. I’m minoring in languages.”

“Oh… Oh my god.” You say, stopping in your tracks. You look up at Namjoon with wide, confused eyes.

“It’s ok.” Namjoon says, pulling you after him into the bathroom aisle with a light touch to the arm.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry,”

“It’s fine I swear.” He reassures, steering you until you’re standing in front of the shower curtains.

“Wow, all this time I was acting like we didn’t know each other-”

“Y/N...” He tries to stop you.

“I’m sorry I have the worst memory.”

“I think it was more your complete and utter lack of interest for anyone but Taehyung that did it.” He teases, not unkindly. There’s more an air of resignation to it.

You drop your head in your hands, feeling flustered and embarrassed.

“Wow everyone really knows, huh?”

“You’re not exactly subtle.”

Maybe your friends were right; maybe you need to take a breather. Maybe this summer away from him is a good thing.

“So… Namjoon Kim, how long have we ‘known’ each other?” You question, quotation marks and everything.

“Well…” He trails off, thinking about it for a second before answering, scratching his head as he seems to be wracking his brain for the exact information. “Taehyung introduced us during one of the first dorms get-together, so I'd say as long as you’ve known Taehyung.”

You groan, pulling on one of the displayed shower curtains, hiding your face behind, doing your best impression of an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

“I’m a horrible person.” You state to no one.

“To be fair though, I was not on the same floor as you guys, so we probably didn’t see much of each other.”

God, he’s such a good person, trying to make sure you don’t feel bad with yourself for basically ignoring him for two whole years. It literally took him moving in with you to notice him. You peek from behind the curtain, not ready to come out completely.

“I feel horrible, I’m really sorry I didn't mean to ignore you for two fucking years.”

“You’re good, y/n, I understand. Actually I think that you-.” He says, but cuts himself short, mouth slamming shut.

“You think that I...?” You ask, curiously, eyebrows going up.

“No, nothing. It’s nothing.” He answers, but it’s hurried, the look on his face borderline frantic. He doubles up on the fiddling with the slippers, the price tag close to coming off with the way he’s tugging on it.

‘Curiosity killed the cat’ they say, but you’ve never listened to that; when you feel like something is being hid from you, you’re like a starving shark smelling blood. You can’t let go, you need to know what’s putting Namjoon in this state; what he was about to say about you.

“Namjoon, it’s ok, you can tell me.” You try to go for a reassuring smile, but the look in your eyes must give you away because it only serves to make Namjoon look more worried.

“I- I think that.” He clears his throat, looking around nervously. “I think that you’re holding the ugliest shower curtain I’ve ever seen.”

You frown, looking down at the aforementioned curtain you're currently still half hiding behind.

It’s truly atrocious; it’s a solid ugly grey color, the top part bare of anything, but starting from the middle, the bottom part is layers of ruffles over ruffles, hemmed by some white lace. It’s truly horrifying; very hard to look at.

“Namjoon.” You say, and his eyes finally settle on you.

“Namjoon, if you don’t tell me what you were going to say I'm making you buy this truly horrifyingly ugly curtain.”

There’s a look of pure unadulterated horror passing through his eyes, before he composes himself, looking perfectly neutral.

“It’s your bathroom, I'll buy whatever you want.” He says, voice void of infliction, and you smirk, pleased.

“Amazing, I’m so grateful you’re willing to spend seventy bucks on this curtain.”

“Seventy bucks?!” He exclaims, choking on air. You know he’s a student; students are usually poor. Simple math.

“Or… you could tell me what you were going to say, and I can settle for this beautiful plain white curtain,-” You entice, coming out of hiding to grab the other curtain on the display, stretching it out and showing it off as if you were in an infomercial. “yours for only…” You pause, checking the price tag, “ $9,99.”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. After a moment of silence, he mutters something so quickly you can’t catch any of it.

“Come again?” You ask, turning on your heels to hug the monstrous grey ruffle disaster to yourself in a threatening manner.

“I said…” He looks about ready to take a bite out of the slipper to avoid your questioning. “ I think that you’re- I think that- It’s cute.” He stammers.

Of all the things, you were not expecting that.

“What?”

“I think it’s cute, ok? I think that you’re cute for focusing all your attention on him like that.”

You’re shocked and confused. This is not the words usually used by your friends to describe your relationship with Taehyung.

“It’s like the rest of the world around you fades away when you’re with him or you think of him, and I wish-...I wish I had someone who liked me that much too.” He finishes, the tip of his ears burning scarlet.

You take him in at that moment, this broad and tall human, with the nicest set of dimples, the soft eyes hidden behind his glasses, the overall grand-father look that he somehow rocks; The way he’s so big yet he’s got this whole gentle vibe going on; how he’s so involuntarily destructive but he also has this calm aura surrounding him.

Suddenly, you’re kind of glad Taehyung is not around. You probably would never have noticed Namjoon if he hadn’t left. It’s only been 24 hours but you already know Namjoon is the kind of person you want to befriend. And he seems to want to befriend you too, so maybe, this summer won’t be so bad.

This summer is terrible.

You get a text from your boss first thing in the morning asking you to come in early, someone else having called in sick. Your bus shows up late, making you late, and you barely have time to catch a breath before Karen, the manager, is on you, lecturing you for your tardiness. Yes, maybe you’re often late, but you can’t really help it if mother nature skipped you when handing out punctuality.

You’re barely clocked in when you’re handed some cleaning tool, a customer having made a mess with some jam pots, meaning this is going to be a sticky disaster. Then you get screamed at because some prick disagrees with the pricing of a jar of pickles, as if that had anything to do with you; You hate pickles.

It just gets dumber from there on, and when the end of your shift comes around, you can’t wait to just be back home, with nothing to do but finally watch the finale of Hannah Brown’s season and maybe stuff your face with whatever you got from the grocery haul you did yesterday.

You wonder if Namjoon is cooking anything; a part of you hopes that he isn’t, worried for the state of the kitchen; another part of you would definitely be pleasantly surprised. As long as there’s no more garlic on the horizon.

It’s kind of weird how this is technically day 3 of you being roommates and you’re already used to his presence. Of course there’s still some awkward moments, but they never last too long.

Namjoon is such a sweetheart, and there’s a part of you that is mad for basically depriving yourself of his friendship for so long. Another part is happy that you did so, or his arrival in your life wouldn’t be the perfect distraction from Taehyung abandoning you. Not that you consider him a distraction, but he’s definitely distracting.

When he’s not falling in showers, he’s singing in them, apparently. Completely off tune, his voice not the most graceful, but still very, very endearing. A shame that you had to rush to go to work while he was having his very own concert, or you would probably have gotten out your phone to gather some blackmail materials.

There’s also his possible inability to cook anything other than pasta; it’s been three days but you’ve already seen him cook some kind of spaghetti at least thrice.

You’re not the most accomplished cook, but you can manage. You have a feeling that next to Namjoon though, you probably look like a professional Michelin decorated Chef. You’re thinking about taking over mealtime when you’re home, maybe assigning him the sous-chef role. A risk that you’re willing to take so you don’t have to see what would probably be a hurt expression at being completely dismissed from the kitchen.

There’s also his ankles. He’s got such pretty ankles, you’re kind of jealous. They’re all dainty and pretty, which is not what a man probably wants to hear when talking about his body, so you’ve decided to keep this compliment to yourself.

You’re not sure exactly what he does during his day. So far you’ve observed that he spends a lot of time in sweatpants, on his computer, earphones cutting him off from the world. He had spent a few hours on the couch yesterday, a focused look on his face as he was clearly working on something, but you didn't want to bother him to ask him what he was doing.

You get home, sighing deeply as you finally take off your shoes after nine hours of standing. It’s dinner time, your stomach is growling, there doesn’t seem to be any action in the kitchen, and you don’t have the strength or patience to cook anything right now, so you grab your phone, pulling up the UberEat app.

You plop down onto the couch, bouncing slightly before properly melting into it, but you can't fall asleep now, you’re on a food-oriented mission.

You’re about to pull up the page of your favorite pizza place when something in your peripheral vision catches your eyes.

It’s Namjoon’s laptop, open on the side table, earphone hanging from the side; The screen light is dim, but you can easily recognize the face on the paused screen.

It’s John Paul Jones.

You can’t believe your eyes, and you’re so shocked, you don’t hear the bathroom door open. You jostle when Namjoon appears in a flash, slamming the laptop shut, looking particularly distraught.

“You did not just see that.” He says, hand still on his laptop, frozen in position.

“I sure fucking did.” You exclaim, eyes sparkling. This is the best thing ever. “You’re watching The bachelorette. Alone. Because this is something you actually enjoy.”

“Please don’t tell anyone.” He whines, dropping into a low squat, wiping his face down with one hand. “I swear I’m a feminist.”

“You’re a romantic, you love love.”

Namjoon groans.

“That’s why you don’t judge me for my crush. You’ve seen worse.” You marvel, and he looks up shyly at your tone.

“You don’t have to worry, I won’t tell anyone...” You linger on the pause for a moment, keeping him guessing. “As long as you promise to do your marathon with me.”

He frowns for a second, searching your face for the teasing or ‘just joking’ that he thinks is coming. But it’s not.

“You’re...a fan of The Bachelor franchise?” he wonders aloud, and you laugh out loud at the bemusement on his face.

“If by fan you mean slowly but surely making my way through all the seasons, all the series, all the content I can, then yes, I would say that I’m a fan.”

There’s a shy smile growing on his face, his dimple going the deepest you’ve ever seen them so far in your three days of co-existing. You’re on the verge of popping out a ruler and verifying once and for all how deep those really are.

“Then yes, Y/N, I will accept your offer of being your bachelor buddy.” He chuckles.

There seems to be a lot of marathons on this summer’s horizon, and you love the idea.

Going to sleep at 5 am is never a good decision, but when it’s because you were binge-watching Bachelor in Paradise with your new bachelor buddy, then you can forgive yourself.

You step out of your room, yawning, at the same time as Namjoon does.

“Hey” You greet him, to which he answers with a small wave, squinty eyes avoiding the light.

“Hungry?” You ask, scratching your head as you make your way to the kitchen, Namjoon following behind.

“Ravenous” He croaks, morning voice ten tones deeper. But it’s not affecting you. Not at all.

You open the fridge to browse the content, pulling out some milk to make yourself some cereal, going to sit at the table so you can both eat and scroll through your phone comfortably.

Namjoon sits on the other side, buttering up some toast with an impressive amount of Nutella; but you’re not judging, being an ex Nutella-addict yourself.

You pull up your text like you’ve been doing for the past few days, checking if you received any messages that your phone failed to notify you about, sighing when you still have no answer from Taehyung. You would worry, except there hasn’t been any newsworthy event about planes or Korea or anything; you’ve been following the news just to be sure.

You peek at Namjoon, who’s staring blankly into his slice of bread with the air of someone who didn’t get enough sleep. You clear your throat lightly to get his attention.

He raises unfocused eyes on you, and you have to bite back a coo at how adorably soft he looks, with his soft brown hair a mess, eyes still half-open, a light stubble slightly apparent, and his mouth hanging slack.

“Did you...did Taehyung send you a text or something? Since he left?”

It takes Namjoon a second to register the question, frowning for a split second before shaking his head.

“He hasn’t, but I wouldn’t worry. His family would have reached out if he hadn’t made it safely.”

“Hmm good point.” You nod, going back to your cereal. You’re slowly coming to terms with the fact that Taehyung seems to have completely forgotten about you. It hurts like a bitch, but it’s getting bearable. You’re not sure how it’s going to be between the two of you once he comes back from his summer spent chasing his internet girlfriend, leaving you in the dust. You’ll definitely feel awkward around him, at least for the first few weeks. You’ll have to have a talk with him, maybe ask for an apology. So many of the plans you made together are now definitely not happening.

“Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“The other day you said that you always plan stuff factoring in Taehyung’s interest and choices, and that kind of bothered me.” Namjoon mumbles, looking suddenly very awake but also very shy.

“Aw, don’t be bothered. In a way it’s kind of my fault you know. I could easily just do my own things, but I choose to plan around him because I want to spend time with him…” You pause, wince. “It’s kind of sad now that I’m putting it this way.”

“I know that he considers you his best friend, though, and relationships, even platonic ones, go both ways.”

You smile into your cereal, pushing them around the milk.

“I appreciate you defending my honor, Namjoon.” You tease lightly, a warm feeling spreading through your chest.

“Actually I was wondering-,” He cuts himself off, scratching his head, before carrying on, “I was wondering, is there something you’ve always wanted to do? But you haven’t since it’s not something Taehyung would appreciate?”

The question takes you by surprise, and you wrack your brain, trying to think of something.

“Well, I’ve always wanted to do a road trip to the future birthplace of Captain Kirk in Iowa, but Taehyung’s not really into SciFi, so I never brought it up.”

Namjoon’s face is the one of someone who was not expecting this answer at all, and he stares at you for a long moment, something akin to wonder sparkling in his eyes.

“You like Star Trek.” He marvels, shaking his head like he can’t believe it. “How are you so perfect.”

You freeze, he freezes; everyone freezes.

“Wait, what did you just say?”

“Erhm, well, hum,-” He stammers incoherently, face growing red, before finally getting control of his tongue again. “I mean, your cinematic taste; they’re perfect. How is your cinematic taste so perfect? I just woke up, my brain is still half asleep.” He laughs, but it sounds forced, and you take pity over him.

“Sure.” You answer, dragging on the syllable. ”Anyway, that’s what I would do. I’ve always wanted to visit there, and I’ve always wanted to do a road trip, so, yeah.”

Namjoon looks grateful that you’re not insisting, taking a big swing from his glass of milk, and you’re scared that he’s going to choke and splurt milk all over the table and you for a second. Knowing his track record when nervous, it wouldn't surprise you, but he manages to keep it all in without incident.

It’s been a while since you’ve practiced your reanimation techniques and Heimlich maneuver, and you make a note to review some videos, just in case. You have a feeling that living with Namjoon is stressful

“The reason I’m asking is, well, I’ve got nothing planned this summer, and I would love to try new things. I know we’re basically strangers at this point, but, if you want we could, you know, do some stuff together. Like, I would love doing a road trip to Captain Kirk’s future Birthplace. Only if you want! I don’t want to impose myself either. If you want to save that for friends you know better, it’s perfectly fine. I’m just saying, like, I’m open to doing stuff with you. Like, I think we get along well and,- Now I’m just rambling.”

You giggle, finding this whole thing quite endearing. You’re tempted to torture him a little, but you decide to take pity on him; it’s morning after all.

“Namjoon.”

“Yes.”

“I would love to go on that road trip with you.” You state simply, and your words take a moment to register, but he gives you a beaming smile, the dimples making yet another noticed apparition. The joy is short-lived though, a frown making its way on his face.

“There’s just one thing; I don’t drive.”

You snort, extending your hand to tap lightly on his, comforting.

“It’s a good thing if you ask me.”

“...Do you?” He asks tentatively.

“Yeah baby,” You exclaim, pulling out your best southern accent. “I'm a licensed driver and everything. ‘Haven’t drove into a wall since 2016.”

“That's not as reassuring as you think it is.”

“Are you questioning my driving abilities?” You ask, leaning forward in a threatening manner.

“...No.” He gulps.

“Then let’s set a date!”

There’s a new air of excitement taking over the kitchen, the prospect of a road trip making you feel giddy like a child going to Disneyland.

“Wait, where would you get the car?”

“I can pull some strings.” You shrug with a taunting eyebrow raise, aiming for mysterious. There’s a certain someone who owes you one, and this is the perfect occasion for him to pay his due.

Before Namjoon can question you further, someone starts knocking on the door incessantly. You turn questioning eyes to Namjoon, who mirrors the look, and he stands up, hurrying to the door as the onslaught doesn't seem to be stopping.

There’s a flurry of movement as whoever is on the other side of the door jumps into Namjoon’s arms, sending him swaying back from the weight. There’s confusion and shock on Namjoon’s face, and you quickly understand why.

“Tae?!”

[papermoonloveslucy]

MOTHER-IN-LAW

November 4, 1949

“Mother-In-Law” (aka “George’s Mother Visits”) is episode #60 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on November 4, 1949. 

Synopsis ~ George gets a letter from his mother that she’s moving to Sheridan Falls. Liz has no doubt that means staying with them!  But when will she ever leave?

This was the tenth episode of the second season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 43 new episodes, with the season ending on June 25, 1950.

Although similarly titled, this radio episode is not the basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “Lucy’s Mother-in-Law” (ILL S4;E8) in 1954. 

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Bea Benadaret (Iris) and Gale Gordon (Rudolph) do not appear in this episode. 

GUEST CAST

Hans Conried (Mr. Benjamin Wood) first co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). He then appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. On “The Lucy Show” he played Professor Gitterman in “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) and in “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (TLS S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. He joined Thomas on a season 6 episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1973. He died in 1982 at age 64. 

Mr. Wood is the Cooper’s next door neighbor. He has eleven children. 

Eleanor Audley (Leaticia Cooper, George’s Mother) previously played this character in “George is Messy” on June 14, 1950. She would later play Eleanor Spalding, owner of the Westport home the Ricardos buy in “Lucy Wants To Move to the Country” (ILL S6;E15) in 1957, as well as one of the Garden Club judges in “Lucy Raises Tulips” (ILL S6;E26).

Peter Leeds (Deliveryman) was born in Bayonne, NJ, was also heard on “My Favorite Husband in “Too Many Television Sets” in October 1949 and “Dance Lessons” in June 1950. He will be seen as the Reporter questioning the Maharincess of Franistan in “The Publicity Agent” (ILL S1;E31). He starred with Lucy in the films The Long, Long Trailer (1953) and The Facts of Life (1960) with Bob Hope. Coincidentally, he also appeared in “Lucy and Bob Hope” (ILL S6;E1) as well as an episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1971.

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on Sheridan Falls and the Coopers,  Liz is in the living room reading a magazine as Katie the maid dusts around the room.”

Liz asks about the mail, but Katie is light-heartedly singing “April Showers.” 

"April Showers" is a popular song written by Louis Silvers and B. G. De Sylva in 1921. It it is one of many popular songs whose lyrics use a "Bluebird of happiness" as a symbol of cheer. The song was introduced in the 1921 Broadway musical Bombo, where it was performed by Al Jolson. That same musical introduced the song “California, Here I Come!” which was famously sung by the cast of “I Love Lucy” in January 1955.

Liz correctly assumes that Katie is so happy because Mr. Negley, the mailman, has flirted with her. Katie says they were “playing post office.”

KATIE: “He’s so creative. He said my mouth was like a postage stamp. Then he canceled me!” 

Katie hands her the mail and Liz finds a letter from her mother-in-law.

LIZ: “No one else addresses a letter ‘To George Cooper Only’ marked personal all over and then seals it with Scotch tape!” 

Liz says that George’s mother does not acknowledge their marriage, let alone address her as Mrs. George Cooper.  Liz decides to sneak a peak at what’s inside the envelope.

LIZ: “I can just see some of the writing. It says ‘Keep Out Nosy’!”

Lucy Ricardo was adept at secretly opening and reading sealed envelopes. In 1951′s “Drafted” (ILL S1;11) she uses the old fashioned steam method, but by 1960′s “Lucy and the Mustache” (LDCH S3;E3) she’s using knitting needles and holding the envelope up to a lamp. 

When George comes home from work, Liz doesn’t even bother with a kiss before giving George the mail. George opens the letter from his mother, which reads “say hello to what’s-her-name.” George’s mother is moving to Sheridan Falls and Liz wants to put her up at the Sheridan Arms (far away) but George proposes the Garden Court (two blocks away). 

That night, Liz wants to smooch in case they have to ‘ration their passion’. Liz is sure Mother will want to move in with them. Mother (Eleanor Audley) enters mid-smooch. Despite the clinch, Mother pretends she doesn’t recognize Liz as Mrs. Cooper! 

Mother ‘mother smothers’ George, much to Liz’s chagrin. George admits that they haven’t found her an apartment yet. Mother quickly agrees to stay with them - only for a few days.

LIZ: “It sounds longer when she says it.”

A Deliveryman (Peter Leeds) rings the bell to announce that they’ve finished unloading Mother’s things: 

LIZ: “Six suitcases, a trunk, an easy chair, a potted plant, a barrel of dishes, two crates of books - just enough for a few days. She’s landed! She’s moved her supplies up and she’s dug in for the winter. You can throw away your calendar, George. From now on, every day is mother’s day with us!”

Two weeks later, Mother is still there and Katie is ready to quit. George’s mother has changed everything in the kitchen around. Liz confides that she’s had no privacy with George. 

LIZ: “The three of us have been inseparable ever since she’s been here. I’m beginning to feel like one of the Andrews Sisters. I’d better go in and see how Patty and LaVerne are getting along.”

The Andrews Sisters were a very successful trio of singing sisters during World War II with 19 gold records and sales of nearly 100 million copies. In 1937, the sisters scored their first big hit with “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen.” In addition to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” their best-known songs included “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” and “Rum and Coca Cola.” The trio officially broke up after the death of LaVerne in 1967, when a suitable replacement could not be found. Patty Andrews guest starred on “Here’s Lucy” as herself in 1969. The plot had Lucy Carter and her daughter Kim (Lucie Arnaz) stepping in for the other two singers for a charity show. During a poker game in “Be a Pal” (ILL S1;E2), Lucy calls her two queens ‘sisters.’ When Fred looks at his newly-dealt hand he quips “You can tell your two Andrews Sisters not to wait up for LaVerne.”

In the living room, Liz finds Mother and George laughing about old times back home. Mother mentions Betty Johanson, a girl George ‘knew slightly’ a dozen years ago. Mother adds that she ‘hasn’t changed a bit.’

Later, Liz tells George that Katie has quit due to his mother’s meddling. George thinks Liz is out looking for an apartment, when Liz saw going to the movies at the Strand Theatre. At first Mother denies going to a movie, but Liz tricks her.

LIZ: “Well, if you were tired, you should have gone to a show. There’s a good one at the Strand: ‘Tokyo Joe’ with Clark Gable.” MOTHER: “Gable? No, it was Humphrey Bogart, I....”  

Mother has been caught in her lie, so she fakes illness and goes to her room. 

Tokyo Joe is a crime film directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Humphrey Bogart. It premiered October 26, 1949, a week before this broadcast. At the time, Clark Gable’s film Any Number Can Play was still in theatres. 

Liz dissolves into tears at the prospect of her mother-in-law staying forever and runs next door to talk to Mr. Woods (Hans Conried) about it over a cup of tea. Mr. Woods says the same thing happened to him with his mother-in-law. 

MR. WOODS: “She moved out after the birth of our eleventh child!” LIZ: “Is that the only cure?”

George comes over to find his wife and Mr. Wood acts as intermediary, shouting at George through the window. They are successful at patching things up. George has told his mother to leave and (unbelievably) she’s graciously agreed to go. Just as she’s about to leave, she gets a spell and faints.

LIZ: “George! Look out!  A mouse!  Running across the floor right near your mother’s hand!” 

Mother jumps up and runs away from the invisible rodent. Liz tricks has tricked her again!  But when Mother sprints across the room, she trips and sprains her ankle!  Six weeks of recuperation ahead!  

GEORGE: “How did this happen?” MOTHER: “I tripped and fell over my suitcase!  Someone put it by the front door!” LIZ: “Oh, no!”

his ending is identical to the play and film The Man Who Came To Dinner by Kaufman and Hart. In it, Sheridan Whiteside is a bombastic houseguest is finally convinced to leave when he slips on the ice and must stay on to recuperate, much to the frustration of his hosts. The 1939 stage play and 1942 film featured Lucille Ball’s friend Mary Wickes as Whiteside’s nurse.  

In the bedtime tag, Liz and George are asleep in bed. Liz wakes George to wonder why he’s smiling. He’s dreaming about the most beautiful creature in the world: a rainbow trout! 

LIZ: “If I ever find one scale on your lapel I’ll swim upstream to mother. Goodnight, George!” 

End of Episode

[creepingsharia]

More than 400 “refugees”, mostly Muslim, admitted to U.S. since mid-March

Two reports from Refugee Resettlement Watch on the continued importation of 3rd world “refugees” - some rejected by other countries due to their terror risk.

From the first report: 

Nearly 400 Refugees Arrive in US During Supposed VIRUS Moratorium

This morning I checked the data base at the Refugee Processing Center and was surprised to see that since the moratorium was announced in the middle of March we admitted 382 refugees.

134 of those came between May first and today, June first.  79 of the 134 are Muslims (THERE IS NO MUSLIM BAN).

There has been no official word that the travel restrictions have been lifted, or none I have seen I should say.

The top sending countries for May were Burma (22), Iran (18), Pakistan (16), Sudan (14) and Syria (14).   21 of the Burmese are Rohingya Muslims.

Of the 18 Iranians, only 2 are Muslim. Of the 16 Pakistanis, 11 are Muslims and all of the Sudanese and Syrians are Muslims.  6 Somali Muslims were ‘welcomed’ too.

Here (below) is a map where the 382 refugees, who have been admitted since we supposedly weren’t admitting refugees, were placed.

I’ve never seen Idaho in the top ten ‘welcoming’ states, but at the moment it is 5th.

 I know the print is small so here are the top ten states which are adding refugees to their already COVID-stressed communities.

Texas (is always number one!)

Massachusetts

Illinois

North Carolina

Idaho

Maryland

New York

Georgia

Tennessee

Utah

As for the Special Immigrant Visas from Afghanistan, I see that we admitted only 40 in the months of April and May when the number for March was 1,594.  After admitting 67,731 since 2007, is it possible we now have ‘rescued’ them all?

-----------------------------

From the second report on what Trump called Obama’s “dumb deal” yet he still keeps importing sick, terror-linked Muslims rejected by Australia:

Dozens of refugees flown from Australia and PNG to US despite coronavirus travel bans

Dozens of refugees who have spent years in Australia’s offshore processing regime have been flown to the United States for resettlement, despite COVID-19 travel restrictions. Transfers from Papua New Guinea and Australian immigration detention centres under the US resettlement program are continuing as the US struggles to contain the pandemic that has killed more than 93,000 people there. Thirty-five refugees departed Port Moresby on Thursday morning bound for the US via Singapore, and one refugee is due to fly to Finland, according to sources and documents obtained by SBS News. A handful also departed Australia for the US this week, including several from the Kangaroo Point hotel being used as an “alternative place of detention” (APOD) in Brisbane and from community detention in Melbourne. Sudanese refugee Omar Muhammed Jack farewelled Australia in a social media post. “Finally after 7 dark years, I'm leaving to USA today,” he posted before boarding the flight in Port Moresby. Omar Muhammed Jack is one of dozens of refugees resettled in the US this week. “I’m going to be free forever and it's amazing and exciting for me but still the happiness (is) incomplete because as long (as) many innocent refugees and asylum seekers (remain) in unlawful indefinite detention for 7 years in offshore and onshore. “To all beloved brothers and sisters in Australia… allow me to thank you for all your efforts and support for the last 7 years.” The men are due to arrive in Los Angeles and then be resettled in 18 cities across the US. A network of Australians in the US called Ads-Up For Refugees has been preparing for their arrival and fundraising to support their resettlement with the added complication of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s an absolutely brutal time to be arriving in America," Ben Winsor, co-founder of Ads-Up, told SBS News. "These guys are landing with barely more than the clothes on their backs and they’ll be looking for work alongside millions of recently unemployed Americans. "Since COVID-19 hit, more than 100 refugees reached out to us for help, they’ve lost jobs and are struggling to pay rent and for basic supplies. "Refugee resettlement agencies were already overstretched and providing only very basic support, now they’re at breaking point."  Many of the refugees have underlying health conditions after years of detention and medical neglect on Manus Island and Nauru. "Their condition puts them at higher risk from COVID-19," Mr Winsor said. "We are in daily contact with two refugees in Texas who have contracted COVID-19." On Tuesday, a number of refugees in Port Moresby celebrated their imminent resettlement under the Australian-US scheme with priest Giorgio Licini, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands. “They were relaxed but had mixed feelings, especially that there are still some left behind, many are those who were never given refugees status and could not go home,” Father Giorgio said. “We understand that somehow the Australian government wants to finish the US option, they should finish this thing as soon as possible, it makes no sense to prolong this agony.” Father Giorgio said the men did not undergo coronavirus isolation in preparation for their departure. ...

In Senate estimates in March, the Home Affairs Department said 702 refugees had been resettled in the US under the agreement reached by then Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and US president Barack Obama in 2016. Under the deal, up to 1,250 refugees who were in offshore processing on Manus Island and Nauru could be resettled in the US at its discretion after clearing “extreme vetting” procedures. The department said a further 260 were approved but had not yet departed, and some were transferred to Australia under the now-repealed medevac laws for medical treatment. Home Affairs told the Senate committee that 211 refugees and asylum seekers remained on Nauru, 228 in Papua New Guinea, and about 1,220, including their dependents, were in Australia to receive medical treatment. Officials said the US aimed to finalise interviewing candidates by “mid-year”.

[tinyshe]

The Fauci Files

At 79 years  old, Dr. Anthony Fauci — who has served as the director of the National  Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 — has yet to  come out with the “Big One” — a vaccine or infectious disease treatment that  will allow him to retire with a victory under his belt.

He failed to  create a successful vaccine for AIDS, SARS, MERS and Ebola. A COVID-19 vaccine  is essentially his last chance to go out in a blaze of glory. As evidenced by  his history, he will stop at nothing to protect Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and  Gilead’s antiviral Remdesivir.

He even threw  tried and true pandemic protocols out the window when COVID-19 hit, turning  into an unquestioning spokesman for draconian liberty-stripping measures  instead. To echo a question asked by Dr. Sal Martingano in his article,1 “Dr. Fauci: ‘Expert’ or Co-Conspirator,” why are we not questioning this  so-called expert?

Fauci ‘Has Been Wrong About Everything’

The risk we  take when listening to Fauci is that, so far, he’s been wrong about most  things. In a July 14, 2020, “Opposing View” editorial in USA Today, White House  adviser Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade  and Manufacturing Policy, stated that  Fauci “has been wrong about everything that I have interacted with him on.”2 According to  Navarro, Fauci’s errors in judgment include:3

• Opposing  the ban on incoming flights from China in late January 2020.

• Telling  the American people the novel virus outbreak was nothing to worry about well  into February.

• Flip-flopping  on the use of masks — first mocking people for wearing them, and then insisting  they should. In fact, mid-July, he suddenly urged governments to “be as  forceful as possible” on mask rules.4

• Claiming  there was only anecdotal evidence supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine,  when the scientific grounds for it go as far back as 2005, when the study,5 “Chloroquine Is a Potent Inhibitor of SARS Coronavirus Infection and Spread,”  was published in the Virology Journal.

Fauci should have been well aware of this publication. According to that study,6 “Chloroquine has strong antiviral  effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These  inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either  before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and  therapeutic advantage,” the study authors  said. In other words, the drug worked both for prevention and treatment.

As noted by Navarro, more recent research found hydroxychloroquine reduced the  mortality rate among COVID-19 patients by 50% when used early.

Interestingly, in a March 24, 2020, interview7 with  Chris Stigall, Fauci did say that — were he to speak strictly as a doctor  treating patients — he would certainly  prescribe chloroquine to COVID-19 patients, particularly if there were no  other options.

Then, in August, he  flipped back to insisting hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work,8 even though by that time, there were several studies demonstrating its effectiveness  against COVID-19 specifically.

So, it appears Fauci has had a hard time making up his mind on this issue as  well, on the one hand dismissing the drug as either untested or ineffective  against COVID-19, and on the other admitting it would be wise to use, seeing  how the options are so limited.

Navarro continues:9

“Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single  most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. The  lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open. So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice,  my answer is: only with skepticism and caution.”

Fauci Has Done  Nothing to Help Unite the Country

While Fauci claims to be exasperated by how political the  pandemic has become,10 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pointed out in an August 2, 2020, Instagram post11 that Fauci himself is, at least in part, part of the problem, as his double  standards on hydroxychloroquine have done much to polarize and divide the  nation:

“Fauci insists he will not  approve HCQ for COVID until its efficacy is proven in ‘randomized, double blind  placebo studies.’ To date, Dr. Fauci has never advocated such studies for any  of the 72 vaccine doses added to the mandatory childhood schedule since he took   over NIAID in 1984. Nor is he requiring them for the COVID vaccines currently  racing for approval.

Why should chloroquine be  the only remedy required to cross this high hurdle? HCQ is less in need of  randomized placebo studies than any of these vaccines since its safety is well  established after 60 years of use and decades on WHO’s listed of ‘essential  medicines.’

Fauci’s peculiar hostility  towards HCQ is consistent with his half century bias favoring vaccines and  patent medicines. Dr. Fauci’s double standards create confusion, mistrust and  polarization.”

In a June 10, 2020, article,12 Global  Research also questioned Fauci’s many attempts to disparage the drug for no  apparently valid reason; even promoting the fake (and ultimately retracted) Lancet  study that claimed to show hydroxychloroquine was dangerous.  At the end of the day, who benefits? Well, certainly it benefits the drug and  vaccine industries, which seems to be where Fauci’s loyalties lie.  

Fauci’s Bias Is Hard to Miss

While Fauci is  not named on the patents of either Moderna’s vaccine or Remdesivir, the NIH  does have a 50% stake in Moderna’s vaccine,13 and the recognition that would come with a successful vaccine launch would  certainly include Fauci.

He also has  lots to lose — if nothing else, his pride — if Remdesivir doesn’t become a  blockbuster, as his NIAID is sponsoring the clinical trials.14 The NIAID also supported the original research into Remdesivir, when it was  aimed at treating Ebola.15

His bias here  is clear for anyone to see. April 29, 2020, he stated16 Remdesivir "has a clear-cut and  significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery." How good  is that? Patients on the drug recovered in 11 days, on average, compared to 15  days among those receiving a placebo. Overall, the improvement rate for the  drug was 31%.

Meanwhile, research17 now shows hydroxychloroquine reduced mortality by 50% when given early, and  many doctors anecdotally claim survival rates close to 100%. This still isn’t  good enough for Fauci, who continues insisting hydroxychloroquine is a bust.18

His stance on these two drugs certainly  doesn’t make sense based on the data alone. But it does make sense if he wants  (or has been instructed) to protect the profits of Remdesivir.

As director of NIAID, which has  been part of Remdesivir’s development from the start, why wouldn’t he want to  see it become a moneymaker for the agency he dedicated his career to? It also  makes sense when you consider his primary job is to raise funds for biodefense research,  primarily vaccines but also diagnostics and drug therapies.19,20

Fauci Doubts Safety of Russian Vaccine

Early in August  2020, Russia announced they would begin vaccinating citizens with its own  COVID-19 vaccine, despite not finishing large-scale human trials.21 The announcement drew skepticism from American infectious disease specialists,  including Fauci, who said he has “serious doubts” that Russia’s COVID-19  vaccine is actually safe and effective.22

Fauci  conveniently ignores the many failed attempts to create other coronavirus  vaccines over the past two decades, including vaccines against SARS and MERS.

He’s probably  right on that point. It’s hard to imagine you can prove safety and  effectiveness in a mere two months of trials. But the fast-tracked vaccine efforts of the U.S. and EU are hardly bound to  be significantly better, considering the many shortcuts that are being taken.

Fauci Ignores Two Decades of Failed Coronavirus Vaccines

Despite being in a position to know better, Fauci  conveniently ignores the many failed attempts to create other coronavirus  vaccines over the past two decades, including vaccines against SARS and MERS. A   paper23 by Eriko Padron-Regalado, “Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: Lessons From Other Coronavirus Strains” reviews some of these past experiences. As noted in the  Conservative Review:24

“Since  their emergence in 2003 and 2012 respectively, no safe and efficacious human  vaccines for either SARS-Cov1 or MERS have been developed.

Moreover,  experimental non-human (animal model) evaluations of four SARS-Cov1 candidate  vaccine types, revealed that despite conferring some protection against  infection with SARS-Cov1, each also caused serious lung injury,  caused by an overreaction of the immune system, upon viral challenge.25

Identical  ‘hypersensitive-type’ lung injury occurred26 when mice were administered a  candidate MERS-Cov vaccine, then challenged with infectious virus, negating the  ostensible benefit achieved by their development of promising … ‘antibodies’ …  which might have provided immunity to MERS-Cov.

These  disappointing experimental observations must serve as a cautionary tale for  SARS-Cov2 vaccination programs to control epidemic COVID-19 disease.”

NIAID Safety Controversies and Ethics Violations

When recently asked  for a rebuttal to criticism of his leadership during the pandemic, Fauci replied,  “I think you can trust me,” citing his long record of service in government  medicine. However, that long service record is fraught with ethics and safety  lapses.

For example, in  2005, NPR reported27 the NIH tested novel AIDS drugs on hundreds of HIV-positive children in state  foster care during the late 1980s and90s without assigning patient advocates to  monitor the children’s health, as is required by law in most states.

Fauci was appointed director of the NIAID in 1984. The  AIDS research was part of his research portfolio, and the AIDS research  division reported directly to him, so these violations occurred on his watch.28 In  2008, two NIH biomedical  ethicists published a paper on the controversial practice of using wards of the  state as guinea pigs, noting:29

"Enrolling wards of the  state in research raises two major concerns: the possibility that an unfair  share of the burdens of research might fall on wards, and the need to ensure  interests of individual wards are accounted for ... Having special protections  only for some categories is misguided. Furthermore, some of the existing   protections ought to be strengthened."

Under Fauci, the NIAID became the largest funder of  HIV/AIDS in the world.30 Despite  that, numerous articles over the years have discussed how AIDS activists have  been less than satisfied with Fauci and the NIAID.31,32,33 A  1986 article stated:34

“If  Fauci were less intent on amassing power within the federal health bureaucracy  … he would have left AIDS treatment research with the NCI, where it began,  relying on that institute's proven expertise in organizing large, multisite  clinical trials for cancer therapies."

A July 23, 2020, article in Just the News lists several  other safety and ethics problems that Fauci has been involved in through the  years, including conflict of interest violations in vaccine research.35

Just the News also interviewed NIAID chief of ethics and  regulatory compliance Dr. Jonathan Fishbein, whom the NIAID was  forced to reinstate in 2005 after it was determined that Fishbein had been   wrongly fired in retaliation for raising concerns about lack of safety in some  of the agency’s research:36

“Fishbein said … Fauci failed to take responsibility for the   managers and researchers working below him when signs of trouble emerged,  allowing problems to persist until others intervened. ‘Fauci is all about  Fauci,’ Fishbein said. ‘He loves being the headline. It’s his ego.’”

Fauci’s Connections  to Wuhan Lab

By now, you  probably also know that the NIAID funded gain-of-function research on  coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As reported by Newsweek:37

“In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National  Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that  included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in  2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.”

This money was  not given directly, but rather funneled to the Wuhan lab via the EcoHealth  Alliance. According to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal,38 the NIH is now insisting EcoHealth Alliance submit all information and materials from the Wuhan lab before it’s allowed to resume funding.

Fauci is a  longtime proponent of dangerous gain-of-function research. In 2003, he wrote an  article39 published in the journal Nature on how “the world needs new and creative ways  to counter bioterrorism.”

“We will  pursue innovative approaches for modulating innate immunity to induce and  enhance protection against many biological pathogens, as well as simple and  rapid molecularly based diagnostics to detect, characterize and quantify  infectious threats,” Fauci wrote.

“These are lofty goals  that may take many years to accomplish — but we must aspire to them. Third, we  must enormously strengthen our interactions with the private sector, including  biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical corporations.

Many biodefence-related  products that we are pursuing do not provide sufficient incentives for industry  — the potential profit margin for companies is tenuous, and there is no  guarantee that products would be used.

Therefore, we will seek non-traditional  collaborations with industry, for example guaranteeing that products will be  purchased if companies sign up … so that we can quickly make available  effective vaccines and treatments …”

With that, there can be little question about which team  Fauci is on. He’s on the side of drug and vaccine makers, and has been for   decades. There’s no money to be made by either the agency or its private  collaborators from natural products such as vitamin D, vitamin C, quercetin or  its drug equivalent, hydroxychloroquine. All of these are dirt-cheap and off  patent.

Prediction Track Record = Null

Fauci’s  predictions for COVID-19 mortality have also turned out to be as inaccurate as  all of his previous predictions. In 1987, he predicted heterosexual infection  of HIV/AIDS would rise to 10% by 1991. It never rose above 4%.

He predicted  the bird flu would result in 2 million to 7 million deaths. In the end, the  avian H5N1 flu killed 440 worldwide. He sought billions of dollars to combat  the threat of Zika, a virus that fizzled without making much of an impact anywhere.40

When you look  at his track record, you realize he’s predicted “nightmare” scenarios for  decades, none of which have materialized.   Last but not least, Dr. Fauci serves on Bill Gates leadership council.

[blackkudos]

Frenchie Davis

Franchell "Frenchie" Davis (born May 7, 1979) is an American Broadway performer and a soul, dance/electronica, and pop singer. She first came to public attention in 2003 as a contestant on the singing competition show American Idol. Davis began performing in Rent on Broadway soon afterward, and was a member of the cast for four years. In 2011 Davis reached the top 8 on the first season of singing competition The Voice.

Early life and career

Davis was born in Washington, DC and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from Howard University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

In the year 2000, she began her performing career in productions of Little Shop of Horrors and Jesus Christ Superstar with the Freilichtspiele Theatre Company in Schwabisch Hall, Germany.

American Idol

Davis was a contestant on the second season of American Idol in 2003, but was disqualified early in the season due to topless photos taken earlier in her career.

According to Davis, she was up-front about her pictures:

"When I first discovered that I had made it to Hollywood and found out I would be competing to get into the top 30 and then later in the top 12, they had given us all this paperwork to fill out, background checks and that whole thing. So when we were doing that I had a discussion with some members of the production staff and I exposed to them a piece of my past; that when I was 19 years old, I took some pictures and that’s not the person I am [anymore]. I wanted to be up-front about it. We talked about it and then nothing happened".

The Idol staff took no action then, but two months later, they decided that Davis's participation would be inappropriate. "They had decided that because American Idol was a family show, that they could not have me on the show because of the pictures I had taken –though they had never seen the pictures," she told EuroWeb. She also added that no one was able to find the pictures in question as the website that featured them had been taken down.

Double-standards controversy

In 2007, revealing pictures of season six American Idol contender Antonella Barba surfaced on the internet, but Barba was kept on the show (though she was voted off shortly afterward). Many drew parallels to Davis's earlier situation. In an interview conducted for The New York Post on Monday, March 5, 2007, Davis said,

"I couldn't help but notice the difference between the manner in which she was dealt with and how I was dealt with.... I think it's fantastic if

Idol

has evolved, and I think it's fantastic she won't have to go through what I went through four years ago … but if the rules have changed, I believe there should be something to make up for the fact that I was humiliated needlessly."

The discrepancy was discussed on talk show The View on March 6, 2007. Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck argued that the difference was that Davis was paid for her pictures whereas Barba was not. Co-host Rosie O'Donnell disagreed, saying, "I think it's racist. I do... I think it's because she's black". American Idol was also accused of racism by Project Islamic H.O.P.E. activist Najee Ali: "obvious that it's a racial bias... when you have a situation where a black contestant is punished and a similar situation happens to a white contestant and there is no punishment and they're allowed to continue on the show."

Post-Idol career

After American Idol, Davis appeared in the Broadway musical Rent in 2003. She sang the solo in the opening song of Act Two, Seasons of Love, and in ensemble roles such as Mrs. Jefferson (Joanne's mom), a woman with bags, a coat vendor, Mrs. Marquez (Mimi's mom) and others. She also occasionally played the part of Joanne. On June 1, 2005, Davis returned to her previous role in the Broadway production of Rent. Davis had previously announced that she would leave Rent in May 2007, but announced her final performance following a mid-April 2007 show. During the weeks leading up to the April 29 performance of Rent's 10-year reunion, Davis appeared in an iTunes Podcast (Rent: The PodCast). She also joined the original cast for a special encore performance.

In 2004, Davis was cast in the role of Effie in a West Coast-touring production of Dreamgirls, which appeared in Sacramento, San Jose, and Seattle, and later went to the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera.

From August 3–19, 2007, Davis starred alongside Miche Braden and JMichael in the role of Mahalia Jackson in the Hartford Stage production of Mahalia: A Gospel Musical, written by Tom Stolz and directed by Jeremy B. Cohen.

In 2008, Davis, along with fellow second-season American Idol participants Ruben Studdard and Trenyce Cobbins, starred in the 30th-anniversary national tour of the musical revue Ain't Misbehavin'. The tour ran until May 2009, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the Best Musical Show Album category.

In the fall of 2010, Frenchie was cast in the role of the Fairy Godmother in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (Enchanted Edition) at the Berkeley Playhouse, the resident theatre company at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley, California.

The Voice

In 2011, Davis competed in the first season of reality competition series The Voice. In the first episode, she performed "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry, advancing to the next round as a member of mentor/judge Christina Aguilera's team of 8.

On the May 10 episode, Frenchie competed in a sing off against Tarralyn Ramsey, both singing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyoncé. Frenchie won and made it to the next round.

On the June 7 episode, Frenchie performed "When Love Takes Over" by David Guetta and Kelly Rowland. She was told, "You may very well have the strongest voice in this whole competition."

In the next week, it was announced that Frenchie did not win the fan vote from the previous week's performance, which would have allowed her to move on in the competition. However, Aguilera used her own vote to move Frenchie onto The Voice's Elite 8.

On the June 21 episode, featuring the Showdown of the Elite 8, Davis performed "Like a Prayer" by Madonna.

Frenchie Davis was eliminated during the semi-finals, finishing fifth overall. She did, however, join the other members of the final eight contestants of the show: Javier Colon, Dia Frampton, Vicci Martinez, Beverly McClellan, Casey Weston, Xenia and Nakia on a U.S. tour summer 2011.

Post-Voice career

In December 2012, Frenchie starred in the musical God Doesn't Mean You Get To Live Forever at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York with legendary pastor Dr. James A. Forbes Jr. and Gregory Charles Royal. In 2014 she made her film debut in the comedy film Dumbbells.

In 2017, Davis starred as Henri in The View UpStairs - an off-Broadway musical about the UpStairs Lounge arson attack that killed 50 patrons of a gay bar in New Orleans. She was also a winner of the Jose Esteban Munoz Award from CLAGS: the Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) at The Graduate Center, CUNY. The award is given to an LGBTQ Activist who promotes Queer Studies outside of academia.

Recording career

Frenchie is a featured artist in the Tony Moran single "You Are" that was released December 1, 2009, and peaked at number 5 on the Billboard hot clubplay chart. "You Are" was the debut single from Moran's album Mix Magic Music.

On September 4, 2012, Davis released her debut solo single, "Love's Got A Hold On Me". The song peaked at #12 on the Billboard Dance Chart. The song was billed as the first single from an upcoming solo album, Just Frenchie, but the album was not released.

Personal life

Davis possesses a vocal range of Lyric Mezzo-Soprano.

In 2012, Davis came out as bisexual. She continues to be a strong and outspoken advocate for the Bisexual community, LGBTQ Youth and for LGBTQ People of Colour.

In 2013 she was the featured performer at the National LGBTQ Task Force's 25th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change in Atlanta GA where she explained that she had come out for all of the young LGBT people. "It's so wonderful to see all the young people here. You all are the reason that I chose to be out. Because it is important that you see people in the public eye who are not ashamed of who they are. It is ok to be true to you."

In 2014 Davis created a stir when she spoke out bluntly in response to the verdict in the Shooting of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn where the jury deadlocked on the charge of first-degree murder, saying "As an LGBT woman of color, I am having an extremely difficult time grasping WHY Matthew Shephard’s life is so much more valuable than Trayvon’s or Jordan’s????!?!?! Help me understand, y’all! Help me understand".

In popular culture

Davis was impersonated by guest host Queen Latifah on the March 8, 2003, episode of sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live; Davis was lampooned for her nude photo scandal, brash attitude and melismatic singing style.

Awards and Recognitions

In June 2017, Davis received the José Esteban Muñoz award from CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies - an award that is given to individuals who promote Queer Studies in their work or activism. She shared the award alongside Nathan Lee Graham and Wilson Cruz.

[flych1]

Kehlani singer on her new album

Kehlani, singer on her new album

Photo: Pari Dukovic

Kehlani

In early March, Kehlani was due to meet his label. She was preparing to release her second album - her first since she had a baby and a return to her roots R-B. She was scheduled to perform the first part of Justin Bieber's Changes tour, as well as a number of dream solo dates. Atlantic executives told him they believed in the album, which was scheduled for release on April 24, its 25th anniversary, but the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to develop a promotion plan. We'd have to postpone it. "I was casting actors and actresses. I was doing all kinds of things," she says of all the pre-production she had completed at the time of the mid-March meeting. We're talking about a video call from Zoom; Kehlani sits alone in a sunny room in his Los Angeles home. (Later, she will be joined by her dog, a pint of ice cream and a tequila-based drink with a slice of orange coming out). It just so happens that today is the original release date. They said, "We don't think you should take it out,"" she said. "And then I went to my room and made the 'Toxic' video on my laptop." She posted it on YouTube at the end of March. "People messed with it," she adds. When Kehlani's label accepted her request to release the album this month, it was stipulated that she had to do it all herself. "If all we do is make music and press the button, then you can do it," she says. "And I was like, 'Okay, challenge accepted fucking.'" So now Kehlani and her photographer, with whom she's in quarantine, are planning and editing music videos, photoshoots, and album coverage. (She also lives with her daughter, two younger siblings, a close friend and her assistant). His garage has been converted into a two-level studio, one side for music, the other for visuals. Kehlani has been a professional musician since the age of 13. A series of mixtapes - full of overshares about having a heart built and broken - and a random but successful debut album have already made her a leading figure in the industry. His music is R-B in its purest form: songs about how love defeats you, about floating on the pure adrenaline of a crush, about the desire of someone you can't trust in your heart. It's no coincidence that when white artists like Bieber and Charlie Puth want to look into an R-B sound, they call on Kehlani to help them. The new album, It Was Good Until It Wasn't, is part of a revival of the genre in the midst of its fiercest debates. It is also a transition disc, a bridge between adolescence and adulthood. Throughout her career, Kehlani has been considered the daughter of the R-B: sexy but boyish. In her old music, she played with both sides of the binary. On the new record, it got too big. She did so immediately after giving birth to her daughter Adeya, who is now one year old. (She is currently co-parenting with her ex, Adeya's father, Javaughn Young-White, younger brother of Jaboukie from the Daily Show). "People would always be like, Kehlani is adorable or, like, Kehlani is cool hella. But then I had a baby and it made me look more feminine," she says. "So I guess I thought, OK, I'm going to start shaking my ass and talk about it." (She wanted Bieber to do a song for her album, but he refused. "Because he's a super-married guy now, it didn't really fit," she said. Kehlani's self-managed music video for "Toxic", filmed with the only camera on her MacBook, shows the nervous figure of the singer slipping and squirming, rubbing her arms and hips. "Don Julio has ridiculed me for you," she tells her former lover that she won't reach out to him, even if her body urges her to do it out of instinct. Kehlani insists this is not his last relationship, which ended publicly and painfully, with Compton rapper YG earlier this year. It's the kind of personal drama that made headlines and made Kehlani's blog famous. She writes songs that address all of this openly. Her fans grow up with her career because she is transparent, sometimes to excess. Or, as she says, I do in public, and it makes people feel like I'm not a stranger. I'm a person with a human ass. I'm screwing up in front of the whole world." The conversation about the state of the R-B was revived last November, when Lizzo, often considered a pop artist, won album of the year at the Soul Train Awards, beating soul singer Ari Lennox. ("It's clear that I'm not cool enough," Lennox tweeted after his loss. Last February, rapper Young M.A. went further, saying that "we barely have R-B". Indeed, in recent years, the superstars of the genre - like SWV, Boyz II Men, Ginuwine, Toni Braxton - and their musical descendants have mostly failed to stop the charts as they did two decades ago; many contemporary black musicians evade the label, preferring to be called "alternative R-B", while others experiment more with genres that were once declared out of bounds by the guardians. Kehlani, on the other hand, is part of a coterie of artists who maintain the relevant R-B today, alongside newcomers like Summer Walker, Bryson Tiller and Lennox. She has a song for every step of a relationship: going under it, going over it, watching the door ahead, a personal promise to stop texting her. His music seems new - not as a consistent copy of a Brandy song - but the influence is palpable. She finds the current debate about gender - what the R-B is, what it was and where it has gone - boring. It may no longer sound like it did in the 90s, but rappers (think, more recently, Drake) have expanded it beyond the desperate desire (or desperate loves) of the last century. "I think people don't know enough about music to make these kinds of accusations [that the R-B no longer exists]. The R-B is simple lyrics and a great song. Lots of harmonies and batteries and melodic production," she says, as if it were easy. "I'll never be able to make 90s R-B music. I'm never going to be able to make R-B music from the early 2000s, because that's not when I was making music. It wasn't when I experienced things that shaped my words and my sound." Kehlani was born in Oakland and raised by her aunt. His mother struggled with drug addiction, and his father died when he was 24 years old and she was very young. A stint on America's Got Talent put her in touch with Nick Cannon, who paid for her to spend time in the studio to make her first mixtape in 2014. On Cloud 19, you can hear the beginnings of a great talent: his voice is more acute and younger, but it is overflowing with emotion. On the deck of Cloud 19's "As I Am" film, she sings and succeeds in the chorus of a Mary J. Blige classic. A week after the release of her second mixtape in 2015, she signed with Atlantic Records. Kehlani turned to pop with his debut album of 2017, SweetSexySavage, an album full of rushed and half-finished ideas. It was carried out amid a personal mental health crisis, sparked by rumors that she cheated on her ex-boyfriend, NBA player Kyrie Irving, in 2016. The relentless online bullying led her to attempt suicide. (Kyrie Irving later admitted that she had never been unfaithful.) "I started an album as a person and experienced the most traumatic event of my life," she says. Her label held on until the deadline, letting her make an album from songs she barely recognized. "I had no connection with the music," she says. "I was embarrassed about everything." The new record is a reset, closer to the Grammy-nominated mixtapes that made it famous. It Was Good Until It Wasn't Gives you the Pure B-R rush, the R-B "waiting for you to call me", the R-B "the only thing that interests me is you": the hits of Brandy and Monica in the 90s, the classics of Alicia Keys of the early 2000s who fall in love. She is also less affected by the nostalgia of adolescence than by the immediacy of adult desires. His first mixtapes were about childhood and adolescence; It Was Good Until It Wasn't at peace with the way most conflicts or heartaches unfold. The title comes from a conversation with a friend about her recent breakup. That's the life of this, you know? she said. The is good and then it's not good anymore. Although she has been in the industry since she was a teenager, Kehlani has never had any decisive success for her career, and it is unlikely that the new album will deliver one. "F-MU" is hot and dancing, and the collaboration with Canadian R-B star Tory Lanez, "Can I," is a sexy earworm - although neither song seems particularly suited to virality. His greatest successes are gossip blogs that overshadow his music. His three-month relationship with YG ended just after they released a song together proclaiming their love. (Their duet came out on the eve of Valentine's Day 2020; three days later, she released a breakup song after images of him cheating her surfaced). Minutes before one of our calls, Kehlani posted a series of tweets about a feud with another Oakland native, rapper Kamaiyah, who slammed her on Instagram Live about a previously unreleased mixtape and accused her of being a colorist, among other things. "She gave the green light to my family and me and told everyone in Oakland to kill us for a song," Kehlani says. (Kamaiyah later replied, telling Kehlani, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't threaten you," but added that "a green light means going like a fight, not shooting"). A moment after our discussion, she answered a phone call from a friend and nervously asked if her tweets - which had let the rapper know there was no bad blood - were correct, if she had handled the situation properly. Kehlani and Kamaiyah had long argued over a joint mixtape, which was to be released before the release of their two albums. Her production was difficult, and even the basic decisions - how many songs she should have, what it should be called, what the visual aesthetic should be - met, according to Kehlani, with Kamaiyah's resistance. In the end, she had had enough of back and forth, and the mixtape didn't seem as essential to her as the release of her album. When she came back to our call, her mood was appalled. I tried to contact her to do good business and she said, "If the project doesn't come out, you can't have it [one piece]," she says. "Even though I wrote it." Once again, she was swept away in a drama she couldn't control, tweeting clarifications about a quarrel she didn't care about, instead of celebrating the upcoming release of her album. But why challenge a misinterpretation if she is tired of getting carried away by the drama? How can I put this to rest and out of my body? Because I don't want to wear them," Kehlani says. "Even if you never want to piss me off again, how can I make sure you know it's love on this side?" she tweeted Kamaiyah to let the rapper know she wished him the best. She is satisfied with the way she has defused an unexpected quarrel. A few years ago, it would not have been as weighted. It took a lot of to get to this point, she says. The death of two friends in three months has put a lot of things in perspective. Philadelphia rapper Chynna overdosed in April at age 25; Minnesota rapper Lexii Alijai, whom Kehlani considered "a little sister," overdosed on New Year's Day at just 21 years of age. Lexii Alijai was scheduled to perform the first part of the post-Bieber tour as the headliner. "I couldn't believe it because Alijai was so young," she says. "It was a click, it was amazing, it was sad and it was heartbreaking. I'm always trying to find the best way to help them continue their legacy." Being 25 was also more than a quarter of a life. It was a horizon she never thought she would see. "I've always had a strange feeling about being 25 or older," she says. "It's a shock because I'm now older than my father was." that's part of what made It Was Good Until It Wasn't feel like the album she finally grew up on. "I wanted to be 25 on this one," she says.

Instagram

from flych https://ift.tt/3fOJi2U via https://ift.tt/2SkgjJX

[blackwxtchmccree]

Side to Side (Sugar Daddy!Gabriel Reyes x Reader)

Can also be found on my AO3 >>> here. 

Chapter 1  | Chapter 2

It’s the end of April and I’m talking about Christmas, but it’s because I kinda wish it was Christmas. Also, if it sounds vaguely like I’m venting my personal problems through reader, well, it’s because I am. Regardless, I hope everyone enjoys! -Valk

P.S. I promise there will be smut. Soon. 

Edit: also if you guys want me to start tagging you when I post this series, leave a comment in the notes <3 -Valk

The first gift Gabriel got you was a Tiffany necklace.

He had Jessie slip it into your bag before you flew back the next day with a note attached to the familiar blue box—

An early Christmas present.

I’m going to Aspen for New Years—it’s not required, but you’re welcome to join me if you want to get away from your parents. Feel free to bring your cat with you. Otherwise, I’ll see you next year. -GR

You didn’t notice it until you were unpacking, shooing Mira off of your clothes so you could throw them in the washing machine, hanging the dress you had worn to dinner up in your closet and putting your new heels by the door, eyeing them with a smile. Once you had transferred some of your things to your suitcase and packed extra clothes to take home, you picked the small box up, slipping the ribbon tied around it off and opening it. Inside, a silver, heart-shaped pendant with “Please return to Tiffany and Co. New York” inscribed on the front and a small key sat on a silver chain and you pulled it out gently, letting it dangle and examining it before clasping it behind your neck. You took a picture and sent it to Gabe with a plethora of hearts.

New Years? -GR

Right. You gave the city a quick search, being met with pictures of snowy mountain sides and expensive houses.

I’ve never been to Aspen. Looks… cold. -Y/N

It’s not too bad when you have someone to cuddle with ;) -GR

You snorted, rolling your eyes, thumb hovering over the screen. It was cheesy, but it made you smile.

Alright you’ve convinced me. See you on New Years? -Y/N

Can’t wait. -GR

With that, you set about your room to finish packing, taking the rest of the day to rest and edit a few photos you had been meaning to get to for a while—personal photos of a few of your friends walking through the fresh autumn leaves earlier that year when they had visited. You had forgotten about them, finding them again when you were sifting through old folders looking for family Christmas pictures that your mother needed for the Christmas cards this year.

The last few made you laugh as you scrolled through them, cuddling a cup of tea to your chest, smiling when you got to a picture of Lena—a short, brown haired girl with amber eyes that you had run track and become best friends with in high school—with a leaf smacking her in the face, Lena’s girlfriend Emily laughing at her in the background. You had snapped the picture at just the right moment, having meant to send it to her after you had uploaded them to your laptop back in September, but forgetting once you got swamped with homework and essays. She had gone to flight school to become a pilot instead of going to college like you—you hadn’t talked to her in a few weeks, deciding to restart the conversation by sending her a screenshot of the photo.

Alternatively, the next photo was of Brigitte—your other best friend who had gone to college in a neighboring state to study engineering—diving into a pile of leaves in the center of campus, her freckled pace popping out of the pile in the next photo, a leaf sticking to her nose. It made you snort and you sent that one to her, too. She visited every few weeks, so you saw her more often than Lena, and she was normally the only reason you ever went out, but you missed her all the same. The friends you had made here just weren’t the same as the two of them.

Within a few minutes, they were both requesting to chat and you accepted their video call requests, smiling when they both appeared on your screen.

“Hi you two,” you greeted them, nearly spitting out your tea when they both yelled excited greeting at you.

“I honestly thought you died I hadn’t heard from you in so long,” Lena snorted, adjusting the camera to better enclose her face. “Finals that bad, huh?”

“It’s certainly been a wild week,” you replied with a shrug, turning your head towards Brigitte. “How was it for you?”

“I’ve been running on coffee for almost 48 hours—you know how it is,” she replied, brushing her ginger hair out of her face. “My last final is tomorrow. I’m jealous you get to go home already.”

“Are both of you coming home?”

“I’m flying in bright and early Tuesday morning,” Lena replied, giving you a thumbs up. “I’m going to lunch with Emily, but after that I’m free.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” Brigitte affirmed. “Half dead and ready to crawl into bed, but alive nonetheless.”

“Tuesday night it is then—we can get drinks. I have something to te-,” but Brigitte interrupted you, leaning in closer to her screen as if that would help her see you any clearer.

“That necklace… I know I wouldn’t be able to afford it, meaning you can’t either,” Brigitte said eyeing you suspiciously—just as observant as ever. “Where’d it come from?”

“Oh don’t tell me-,” but you interrupted Lena just as she got excited, your hand flying up to idly run a finger over the pendant, a blush highlighting your cheeks. You didn’t know how to explain it to them—knowing it would probably be easier if you did it in person.

“It’s only… kind of what you think. That’s why I want to see you both.”

They both affirmed your request, settling on a meeting place and time Tuesday night before the conversation drifted to the photos you had sent them among other things. Eventually, you found yourself drifting, reminding them of your plans before signing off, falling asleep with a smile on your face for the first time in a while. You didn’t know how they would take it, but they were your best friends, so you hoped they wouldn’t think any less of you.

You got up a bit earlier than usual the next morning, putting your suitcase and Mira’s carrier with her in it into the backseat before heading home. It was a bit of a drive, but you were there by mid-afternoon, unloading your things and greeting your family. You spent the next day and a half with them, helping your mother decorate the tree and wrap last minute presents, laughing as you watched Mira play among the excess wrapping paper.

You pulled your camera out, taking photos of her as she rolled around like a kitten before moving to take pictures of your mother cooking, snapping a few before she noticed and shooed you away. They may not have approved of you being a photography major, but you were damn good at it. It was also the first time in a long time that you actually enjoyed taking photos again—as if a weight had been lifted off of your chest. You could quit your job—not have to worry about bills and tuition and you could stop taking photos of things you weren’t particularly interested in and finally focus on what you wanted to. You knew you had Reyes to thank, your hand falling to the necklace under your t-shirt, a small smile gracing your lips.

The next night, you met up with Lena and Brigitte, hugging them both tightly outside of the bar you three had chosen. Brigitte had been working out and you complimented her on her physique; Lena hadn’t changed much and was as chipper as ever, dragging you inside and ordering wine for the three of you once you found a table.

“Alright—spill it. We want to know,” Brigitte started, scooting her chair closer to you and leaning in. Lena did the same and you looked between them for a moment before letting out a small sigh.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you found someone,” Lena chastised you, looking up at you with sad brown eyes, pouting.

“It’s not like… that. Not quite, anyway,” you replied sheepishly, taking a deep drink from your glass, realizing more alcohol may make this easier to get through.

“I mean if they’re buying you things it has to be pretty serious, right,” Brigitte asked, tilting her head to the side curiously. “How long have you been together?”

“Four days,” you deadpanned, laughing and nearly spitting out your wine when they both went wide eyed, confusion evident on their faces. “I may have found myself a sugar daddy. But like… a real one—not like a ‘still in business school’ banking executive wannabe.”

“You’re kidding,” Lena murmured, her face unreadable for a moment. Then, a smile broke out on her face she started giggling, looking at Brigitte before turning back to you. “I didn’t take you for one to be into older men, but whatever you floats your boat, love.”

“As long as he takes care of you,” Brigitte affirmed with a nod. “I will say this is the least stressed I’ve ever seen you. Have you met him—like in person?”

You nodded, sitting back in your chair and relaxing a bit, mentally scolding yourself for ever thinking they would have anything other than your best interests at heart. You quickly explained everything that had happened thus far, ordering another round of glasses for the three of you.

“Do your parents know,” Lena asked, knowing it would be just another point of contention between you and your parents.

“No—no one does except you two,” you replied with a shake of your head. “And I need it to stay that way. He’s flying me out to Colorado to spend time with him over New Years and I have no idea what I’m gonna tell my parents.”

“Tell them I invited you to a party on campus because I didn’t want to go alone,” Brigitte offered nonchalantly, sipping at her drink.

“Or tell them I asked you to take pictures at a New Years party I’m hosting,” Lena suggested. “I’ll vouch for you.”

You smiled at them both, forcing down the tears that threatened to spill over, glad you had friends like them to cover and support you.

“Either works. Thank you both.”

You spent the rest of the night talking and laughing with them, even drunkenly singing a few karaoke songs on the stage together, realizing just how much you missed being around them. You finally stumble into your house around 1 am, picking up Mira and carrying her upstairs to your bedroom, texting both Lena and Brigitte to tell them you made it home safely before curling up in bed.

Christmas came and went as it always did—you found little had changed at home, which meant your patience with your parents wore thin after spending just a week at home, becoming tired of their passive aggressive remarks regarding your school work and your social life. When you told them you wouldn’t be home for New Years because you were going to a party, they both looked you, seemingly surprised.

“Going out for once? That’s a nice change,” your mother commented. “Did you finally makes some friends other than Lena and Brigitte? And your roommate doesn’t count.”

“Brigitte goes to a good school. Maybe you’ll find someone better than that deadbeat you dated in high school,” your dad chimed in, making you bite your tongue before you said something stupid. “Oh I meant to ask—how’d your exams go?”

“Fine—as usual,” you replied quietly, trying to keep a scowl off of your face.

“We expected as much—arts classes can’t be that hard,” your mother retorted. “It’s not too late to change your major, you know.”

To something more useful you could hear her thinking. It made you roll your eyes and you didn’t bother replying with anything other than confirmation that you were going with Brigitte and that you were leaving tomorrow. Gabe had actually scheduled your flight for New Years Eve, 2 days from now, but you texted him a few minutes later, asking if he could move it because you couldn’t stand being in your house anymore.

Done. Everything okay? -GR

Parents. I’ll tell you about it when I get there. Can’t wait to see you <3 -Y/N

You relayed which story you chose to Lena and Brigitte in case your parents asked, packing everything in advance that night, leaving before they woke up the next morning, even if it meant you had to sit for an extra hour at the airport. You boarded a smaller plane this time, tucking Mira’s carrier under your seat and settling back. You found that sleep was a little more difficult to find this time—the flight was turbulent and Mira was not pleased. You wanted to pull her out and cuddle her, but you were sure that was looked down upon, so you murmured to her sweetly to comfort her until she fell asleep. Once you landed, you toddled off the plane, vaguely quesy, relieved to be met with bone-chilling air once you stepped outside.

There was more snow on the ground than you had seen in your entire life and more was slowly falling. You shuffled into the small airport to grab your bags, met at the entrance by McCree and Shimada, the cowboy tipping his hat to you.

“Lookin’ a little green around the gills there, darlin’,” Jesse laughed, taking Mira from you as Genji grabbed your bag.

“You could say that,” you replied, brow furrowed. “Evidently I don’t deal very well with turbulence. Neither does she.”

“That’s alright. I don’t either,” McCree replied, opening the back door for you to get in, reaching around to the front seat to grab something, presenting you with a heavy peacoat. “From Reyes—it’s cold and it’s only gonna get colder, so bundle up.” You nodded, taking it gratefully and slipping it on.

Much to your surprise, the drive to the house was no more than 10 minutes from the airport. You looked out the window, watching in astonishment as you passed both houses and snow drifts bigger than you had ever seen before in your life. Turning onto a small street with a cul-de-sac, Jesse pulled into the driveway of a huge, more modern house near the end. You noticed two people standing at the front door and your eyes fell on Gabe standing opposite the couple inside the house, casually conversing with them. Genji opened the door for you, warning you to mind the ice.

“We’ll bring your bags inside and let Mira out to explore if that’s okay,” Shimada informed you and you nodded, thanking them as you headed towards the front entrance. Gabe looked up from the conversation as you approached, the couple he was conversing with turning towards you. ‘Play along’ you saw him mouth at you as you reached the steps that led up to the door, brow furrowing when he chuckled at your slightly taken aback expression.

“You must be Y/N! It’s so nice to finally meet you,” the man, a taller gentleman with dark hair and a mustache, greeted you brightly, extending his hand towards you and shaking it vigorously. The woman next to him, who you presumed was his wife, extended her hand as well, her long, black hair falling over her golden eyes as she greeted you quietly with a soft smile.

“Easy Gerard—she had a long flight,” Gabriel advised, extending a hand towards you as you came up the stairs, smiling when you took it and let him pull you inside. “Y/N—this is Gerard and Amelie. They live next door.”

“Nice to meet you both,” you said with a smile, clinging close to Gabriel’s side anxiously, caught slightly off guard by having been drawn suddenly into the conversation. You felt him rest his hand gently on your side, giving it a comforting squeeze that calmed your racing heart slightly.

“Gabriel has told us a lot about you. Congratulations on your tenure,” Amelie said, giving you a small, respectful nod. “Your dissertation on the influence of Renaissance humanist literature on Reformation ideology sounds intriguing. You’ll have to tell us about it sometime.”

“Gladly. It was a pivotal time in European history—the outcome of which shaped the religious and political landscape of the rest of the western world,” you replied with some degree of certainty, realizing what Gabe had meant when he said ‘play along’ earlier—also mentally thanking yourself for paying attention during your history class that past semester.

“We’ll leave you two be for now and let you get settled,” Gerard said with a finalizing nod towards both you and Gabriel. “See you on a couple of days.”

“Don’t forget that bottle of wine,” Gabriel called after them as they descended the stairs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” And with that, Gerard and Amelie disappeared down the driveway and across the street. Gabriel ushered you fully inside after, unwilling to let any more cold air in.

“Wha-what was that,” you asked once he closed the door, turning towards you with a small smile on his face.

“Oh—I told them you were a newly tenured professor at my alma mater—just wanted to see how well you could play along,” Gabriel replied, smirking slightly as he approached you.

“How’d I do?”

“Very well—you handled that nicely,” he replied, resting a hand on your lower back and guiding you through the modestly decorated house. “You’re more capable than you think. You’ll do just fine at the events I take you to.”

“I hope so,” you said hesitantly, looking around as you passed down a short hallway into an open living space. A large living room sat to your left and a kitchen to your right. The back wall was made up of mostly paneless windows facing the huge, snowy mountains in the distance. You drifted over to look through the glass, admiring the view for a moment, awestruck.

You were drawn back out of your head when Reyes approached you, extending a mug of hot chocolate towards you. You took it gratefully, holding it for a moment to let it warm your hands before taking a sip, turning to watch as Gabe returned to the kitchen to grab his coffee, your eyes trailing over his form slowly. You admired the way the maroon t-shirt he wore clung tightly to his chest and arms, outlining the toned muscles that lay underneath. Your eyes fell further, down his muscular abdomen to the black skinny jeans he wore that clung to his strong thighs in all of the right places.

You had only seen him in suits up until now and something about seeing him dressed so casually made you blush, moreso when you realized he had caught you staring just now. He chuckled when you looked away, unable to meet his gaze, your hand flying up to cover your flushed face. That made Gabriel laugh even harder.

“You’re alright, cariña. I’m flattered,” he replied softly, making his way over to you, running an idle hand across your shoulders and down your back, making you shiver, but you found yourself leaning into his touch. “How was your flight?”

“Long. Turbulence made me nauseous and poor Mira didn’t know what to do with herself, but I think we’re alright now,” you replied, finding yourself leaning into his side, searching for his warmth. “Sorry if me coming a day early was an inconvenience. I-I just couldn’t stand being home any longer.”

“Not an inconvenience at all—it’s always almost too quiet here, so I’m glad,” Gabriel replied, taking your jacket as you slipped it off and hanging it in a nearby closet before settling on the plush couch, motioning for you to join him. “What happened with your parents?” You sighed, settling onto the couch next to him, finding it easy to curl up against him, your thumb running idly around the lip of your mug.

“It just seems nothing I do is good enough for them, is all,” you murmured, looking up to meet Gabriel’s gentle gaze. “They said I don’t have enough friends and I don’t go out enough, so I got a job and made new friends and started going to bars with them, but then my school work was suffering because I was always going to class hungover and they yelled at me about my grades, so I started studying more meaning I couldn’t go out as often and they told me I was being too much of a shut-in and so on…”

“Endless cycle, huh?”

“Basically. Now all I want to do is sleep because I’m exhausted all the time from working and studying so much and I don’t have the time or energy to go out anymore, so we’re back to square one,” you murmured, clenching your jaw, fighting back tears. “And I know they hate the major I chose because they don’t think I’m good enough to make it and I know I’ll never make enough money to ever make them think I’m ‘successful’, so sometimes I wonder why I even try anymore.” Your voice broke as tears stained your cheeks, a sob wracking your body.

You hadn’t meant to cry, almost embarrassed, but Gabriel took it in stride, quick to pull you closer, rubbing your back and using a gentle thumb to wipe away your tears.

“You’ve been working so hard, cariña,” he murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “You can relax now—I’ll take care of what I can for you, just focus on what you need to, regardless of what your parents think.”

“I wish it was that easy,” you sniffled, leaning into his touch as he cupped your cheek, letting your eyes flutter closed.

“Give it time. You can quit your job, you don’t have to worry about your tuition, you can spend more time with your friends and still have time to study,” Reyes murmured in reply, dragging the pad of his thumb gently across your cheek. “You’re so talented and I wish your parents could see what I do.”

“I’m just so tired.”

Those words broke his heart.

“I know,” he whispered, drawing your head against his chest, threading his fingers gently through your hair. “Get some rest for now.”

Being close to him like this was strange, but somehow felt natural and after a moment you realized you didn’t want to move away, finding yourself tucking your head further against his chest, the steady sound of his heartbeat lulling you to sleep, the subsequent nap you took making up for the sleep you missed this morning.

[hpdrizzle]

HP Drizzle Fest 2019: Rules & Guidelines

Welcome to the 2019 hp_drizzle / hpdrizzle FEST RULES POST!

We are excited to have you here. Please read through this whole post and feel free to ask any questions about whatever we might have forgotten to include.

What is HP Drizzle?

It's an anonymous prompt-based fest. Authors and artists will create a Harry Potter piece that involves weather in any kind; for example, it could be Character A and Character B kissing in the rain or Character C building a snowman in their garden. The possibilities are endless. We accept Het, Femslash, Slash, Gen, Three/more-somes, along with angst, dark, fluff, hurt/comfort, humour, etc, etc…

Continue reading for the rules/guidelines!

Prompting

Prompting begins on 1st of April and will remain open until the 15th of April (6 pm New York Time).

A link will be provided on April 1st and all members can leave up to 10 prompts per person. The link will be a "Google Form," and we're requesting all members to limit their prompts up to 10.

You will be able to view what prompts are being posted during these 15 days.

Your prompts can be from Fantastic Beasts and the Cursed Child.

Claiming will begin on the 20th of April.

Sometime between the 16th and the 19th, the mods will organize the prompts in different categories: Het, Slash, Femslash, Multi/threesomes, Any/Other.

We will give you the link to ALL categorized prompts by the 19th of April, so you can be ready for your claim. Claiming will also be done with Google Form.

During your claim, you'll be asked for the following: Your username / fandom base (Like, LJ, DW, Tumblr, etc…) What prompt you want. We will ask you to pick at least 2 prompts just to be sure you have a backup if your first choice is taken.

Prompts are simply guidelines, and the creators can choose to do whatever they want with the prompt. This is not a gift exchange so you have the freedom. 

♥ Anyone can make a claim. You do not have to prompt to claim. You do not have to claim to prompt. ♥ All stories submitted must be unique to this fest.

If your first choice is taken you will get your second choice. You do not have to pick from the list of prompts to create for the fest. You can simply write/create art for your own idea. If you are doing something for your own prompt, you still have to fill out the Claim Form and let us know what you're doing. This is so planning can be easy for the mods when it's time to post for the fest.

♥ Please let us know if you have to drop out of the fest. We will not be upset, you will not be banned from future fests; we just need to know ASAP!

Claiming is anonymous. Posting is anonymous.

When all submissions are posted, we will create a masterlist and REVEAL who wrote what (or created what art).

The keyword is ANONYMOUS. GUYS, I cannot stress this enough. It's ANONYMOUS. We had some serious issues last year with new members who started to post their story/art on other platforms (like Facebook or Tumblr) BEFORE reveals.

The HP Drizzle fest is ANONYMOUS. Please, please, please respect this rule. If you simply cannot wait and are not a patient person to wait until mid-October for reveals, then we'd like to request that you do not sign up.

Being anonymous is half the fun. The other half is reading the anonymous entry. It's heartbreaking to have people sign up and then not respect the rules. It's heartbreaking for the mods, and it's downright disrespectful for other participants.

Fest begins on 1st of September. If your anon entry goes up on the 15th, it does not mean you can now post wherever you want. You have to wait until every single post is made, an anonymous masterlist is posted, and a REVEALS post is made.

Okay, so anonymous.

Phew.

Submissions are due on the 15th of August.

You can do a couple of things. For art, please email us your entry. We will host the art on our server - do not SIGN your art b/c (guess what?) it's ANONYMOUS. After reveals, we will replace your art with a signed version if you wish that.

Every single entry will be posted on AO3. Headers and links will be posted on DW and Tumblr and Livejournal. No art will be posted anywhere but on AO3. Art can be any medium and any style. It must be at least 600x600 pixels. Please wait until reveals to post your art on your tumblr. PLEASE. WAIT.

Fics must be at least 1000 words. There's no maximum. If you are aware of how to HTMLIZE your fic, please email us your fic with the header - in HTML CODE.

Basic HTML guides are: + phoenixacid’s Basic HTML Guide + megyal's: tutorial for placing HTML tags around similarly formatted text in Word

FINALLY please utilize potterwords for all the correct spellings that you might need for creatures, characters, or anything else for your creations.

We will have an AO3 collection. For members who are comfortable with posting their fic on the COLLECTION, will be welcomed to do so. This is very important, because if you do not know how to do it, don't worry, we can do it for you. You can email us your fic or we can do a step by step tutorial on how to do it.

Please make sure you POST TO COLLECTION on the link provided and do not simply post your fic on AO3 - then it will be revealed too soon.

Every single person has to email us a header with your fic or art. If you are posting your fic yourself on the AO3 collection, then you still have to email us a header.

What's a header?

It's something that goes on top of the link for the fic, telling the audience, what the fic/art is about. Everyone needs to use the same header.

<b>Title:</b> <b>Author/Artist:</b> (write your user name and/or link to your profile page) - we will remove this during posting and add it back when the fest is finished. <b>Prompt:</b> # (this will be the prompt you selected) <b>Pairing(s):</b> <b>Word Count/Art Medium:</b> <b>Rating:</b> (G to NC-17) <b>Warning(s):</b> <b>Disclaimer:</b> A basic line about how this is for fun, etc, etc… <b>Notes:</b> <b>Summary:</b>

Do not remove the coding. Write after the "</b>". For example:

<b>Title:</b> A Story about Rain <b>Author/Artist:</b> authorname.dreamwidth.org. <b>Prompt:</b> # 72 <b>Pairing(s):</b> Parvati/Hermione <b>Word Count/Art Medium:</b> 4000 words (or Digital Art) <b>Rating:</b> PG <b>Warning(s):</b> This story takes place in an AU. <b>Disclaimer:</b> This story/art is created for fun. No profit is being made.<b>Notes:</b> Thanks to my beta, Q! <b>Summary:</b> Hermione and Parvati get caught in the rain.

+ It's very important that you do not remove the coding. + Your header does not go in your AO3 page. The header is only for LJ/DW/and Tumblr. + If you copy and paste your header in AO3, then your name is there, and then it's not anonymous. + If you have any confusion about this, please ask.

If you submit your fic to AO3 directly, then you will be asked to add the mod account as a co-creator. Please add: drizzle_mod. This is important because when your story is posted for the fest, the mod will know when it'll be posted and we can update the date of posting so it shows up on top.

Extensions will be judged on an individual basis. Try to give us as much notice as possible, we mods don't love last minute panics, it messes with our pretty schedules! (The subject of your email should read: EXTENSION- YOUR USERNAME). If you need to drop out for any reason, please send us an email letting us know before the deadline for submissions.

All fic submissions need to have been beta-read. We will skim through your story and if it's evident you did not have a beta, we will return your fic and ask you to fix it. The content is yours, we require it to have a proper SPaG (Spelling and Grammar) proofread.

PODFICS are also allowed for the Drizzle fest. A separate post will be made about podfic sign ups. Podfic sign up will be anonymous. When Podfics are posted, their creator will be revealed at the same time as the Podfic. Basically, Podfic posting is not anonymous.

If you have questions, you can ask us anytime. Either on this post or via email: hpdrizzlemods@gmail.com. Please do not send us PMs.

A few things that might help us all if we remember…

Mods are people. Human beings make mistakes. They require time offline, time to sleep and eat and take a break from mod duties from time to time. On top of it all, Mods also have full time jobs.

So, if you send us an email/ask, please give us a little bit of time to respond. During claiming, give us 24-48 hours to get back to you with confirmations. Fandom is across the globe and across different time zones hence all we ask is for you to be patient with us.

Be gentle and always remember this fest is here to have fun. Don't stress yourself out. If you have to drop out, let us know. If you need to express disagreement, please do it with respect.

Your hp_drizzle / hpdrizzle mods,

@digtheshipper (digthewriter) & @ohlookagaydraco (fangqueen)

[riddlethriftpinkcoats]

A quote from the November 1961 Riddlegram: "Thrift Shop Is In The Saddle, Leaves Starter's Gate December 1st."

The Riddle Thrift Shop was a solid fact in November of 1961. The location was 315 Monroe Street in Media PA. A lease for one year was signed with the cost of rent at $125.00 per month and an option to renew for two additional years at the same rent.

A paid worker, Mary Hibberd of Media was hired and volunteers from the various auxiliaries were assigned to help with the running of the shop. The shop committee, headed by Rose Tree's Ruth Graham and Lillian Hinson of Springhaven, received unanimous approval from the Women's Board to spend up to $7,000 of the Associated Auxiliaries funds to finance the first year of operation.

A working schedule was set up from each of the auxiliaries to man the shop. There were two co-chairmen appointed from auxiliary members to help with the scheduling of workers and make decisions. The first co-chairmen were Ruth Graham of Rose Tree Auxiliary and Lillian Hinson of Springhaven Auxiliary.

By January 22 of 1962, the new Thrift Shop had already paid out $1,837 to consignors, and the shop showed gross earnings of approximately $800. In February of 1962, Alda Knox became the new professional worker for the Thrift Shop and in November of that year, Saige Macauley replaced Lillian Hinson as one of the co-chairmen.

The Thrift Shop was open to customers from 10 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm. Consigning hours were 10 am to 1 pm, Mondays through Friday. Consignments were 75% of the selling price for the customer and 25% for the shop. Consignment fee was $1.50 per week, per consignor. The Thrift Shop was open from September until mid June, when it closed for the summer.

1965 found the Thrift Shop at a new address in Media. They moved to the site of the old post office at State & Jackson streets. The move took place in December over a weekend. Paint for the new location was donated by MAB Paint and a truck was loaned to them for moving merchandise and fixtures. Within 3 days they were back in business. They moved a third time to South Avenue in Media. Rosemary McClatchy and Irma Scholten were co-chairmen at that time.

In the years of 1969 to 1970 they realized a profit of $9,000.

At the September 13, 1971 Women's Board Meeting, the announcement was made that the Board of Directors for the Hospital were willing to consider approval of putting the Thrift Shop on Hospital grounds. By this time, the Thrift shop had made a profit of $69,800.00 for the hospital. A resolution was drafted by the Women's Board to be presented to the Hospital Board. At the October 11, 1971 Women's Board meeting, it was announced that the hospital had accepted the resolution to relocate and had provided the space.

The new building was to be 40' by 70', a two story building similar in design to a Wawa food market. Building would start after finishing the hospital.

At the Women's board meeting in April of 1972, it was agreed that $25,000 be set aside for the down payment and hold $5,000 in escrow for payment of lighting, heating, equipment, etc. In June of 1972 the Auxiliary met with an Architect, Mr. Edward E. Robinson, for final plans on the new building. Construction started in the fall with a $30,000 loan from the Women's Board and $100,000 five year loan from Southeast National bank.

The doors of the new Thrift Shop opened on March 13, 1973. The $100,000 was paid in full by February of 1975 with the help of the Women's Board. By the end of 1975 the Riddle Thrift Shop had actually paid for itself, all loans included. The total cost of the 6,000 square foot building and the 24 car parking lot area was $143,087.00.

On March 3, 1973, there was an Art Show and Cocktail Party for the purpose of introducing the new Thrift Shop. This event was not only a social success but also a financial success as well. Over 60 local artists showed their art work and about 700 people attended.

For several years, the Thrift Shop held a Fashion Show. These shows were always very well attended and fun was had by all.

There were many different Auxiliary members who were either chairmen or co-chairmen of the shop over the years. April of 1973 saw Marge Zultewicz as Chairman of the new shop. Alice Wilkinson became chairman in 1981. Our current Chairman is Janice Duryea.

A Fire Alarm system was added in 1976 for $831 and in February of 1982, the Associated Auxiliaries approved drawings by an architect for an addition to the shop. The second floor addition was completed by 1983 at a cost of $160,797.30. 1997 saw another addition to the shop, a much needed elevator.

The computerization of the shop occurred in the Fall of 1995. We trained our volunteers and employees over the summer and went "live" August 28, 1995. What a difference. Our consignments were typed into the computer. Tickets were printed rather than hand-written. Items were scanned at the register eliminating the time consuming "punching-in" of the numbers. This new system allowed us to do away with the manual posting of sold items and the handwriting of the checks. We were able to cut time in the office and utilize personnel on the selling floor and in consignment where they were needed.

We continued with this "DOS" system after a slight upgrade for the year 2000 until the summer of 2005 when we converted everything to a Windows based system. On-line credit cards, gift cards, touch screens and all kinds of bells and whistles accompanied the upgrade making us one of the most technologically advanced thrift shops in the area. Our Web Page is set to debut in the Fall of 2008.

Nina Cruice joined the Thrift Shop as an Assistant to manager Helen Corace in May 1982. She became manager of the Thrift Shop in November of 1984 when Helen Corace retired. In 2001, The Merry Token Gift Shop was added to the Retail Operations Department. As Director of Retail Operations, Nina is responsible for a staff of four full time employees, two part-time employees and approximately 190 volunteers.

The Manager of the Thrift Shop is Peg Stacy. Peg came to the Thrift Shop as a new employee in 1996. Peg has two assistants today, Jean Akers and Karen Hagan. There are 130 volunteers that help to keep the Thrift Shop running so smoothly today.Our Chairman is Jan Duryea and her co-chairmen are Karen DiPaolo, Audrey Lesky and Bette Smith.

The Thrift Shop is open in the summer, but on a modified schedule. It is open 4 days a week as opposed to 6 days. It has been found that it pays to remain open during the summer months.

The shop continues to evolve in an effort to serve the community and to fulfill its mission as a major fundraiser for the Associated Auxiliaries of Riddle Memorial Hospital.

The shop that began in a small store on Monroe Street in Media grew into a 10,000 square foot two-story building on the grounds of Riddle Memorial Hospital. Along the way it has contributed over $3,274,900 to the Associated Auxiliaries of Riddle Memorial Hospital.

[berniesrevolution]

IN THESE TIMES

With the popularity of politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the explosion in membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), socialism is all of a sudden central to the national political conversation. And it's happening in the United States. Despite being a country long argued to be uniquely allergic to all talk of class conflict and any alternative to capitalism, here we are, watching many Americans question whether we should remake our political and economic systems from top to bottom.

But this isn't the first time mass numbers of people in the United States have considered socialism. The last time was half a century ago, when the New Left raised questions about capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism and much more. At the tail end of the 1960s, those questions were taken up by the New Communist Movement (NCM), a collection of groups in the Marxist-Leninist tradition. While the movement was made up of organizations that had different answers to burning political questions, on the whole, these groups were inspired by the left-nationalist projects of the day, including domestic movements like the Black Panthers and Puerto Rican nationalist groups, and international communist movements in Cuba, Vietnam, and especially China.  

Max Elbaum was deeply involved in that movement. After joining Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) as a college student in Madison, Wisconsin, Elbaum co-founded the NCM group Line of March. He ended up devoting his life to various movements against war and racism, and served as the editor of the leftist magazine CrossRoads throughout the 1990s.

Elbaum is the author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Che, and Mao, reissued in April by Verso Books with a new foreword by Alicia Garza, cofounder of #BlackLivesMatter. Though he was a participant in some of the organizations and campaigns and the overall movement that he chronicles in the book, Revolution in the Air takes a more dispassionate look at the NCM, fairly weighing its achievements and missteps.

It's hard to come away from reading Elbaum's book without thinking that the movement made far more missteps than achievements. As we explore in our conversation below, the movement's orientation towards “Third-World Marxists” and left nationalism gave it some redeeming characteristics, like its steadfast commitment to anti-racism and creating a multiracial movement. But it also quickly became a movement rife with undemocratic behavior, obsessed with doctrinal purity, and orientated towards regimes like China that radicals later realized were far from successful democratic, socialist societies.

This is a history that's worth excavating in its own right, given how significant the NCM was at the tail end of the New Left. But it is also history that radicals today would do well to wrestle with. Socialists in the 21st century don't have to completely reinvent the wheel — they can learn from the often-heroic efforts of radicals several decades ago. Revolution in the Air is essential reading for the new generation of radicals that wants to get anti-capitalism right this time, avoiding the same sectarian, undemocratic, purity-obsessed mistakes that the past generation of Marxist-Leninists did.

I recently interviewed Elbaum about his book. Our conversation focused on the history of the NCM and—especially—what it can teach members of the DSA.

Micah Uetricht: Let’s start with the basics. What was the NCM?

Max Elbaum: The NCM was an effort by several thousand people to revitalize communism, during a period when traditional communism had been stagnant. It evolved out of the radical movements of the 1960s and had some momentum on the left from the late 1960s into the 1970s. At that point, it was the predominant trend within the Left. It had the highest proportion of people of color and some influential political initiative.

It ran into difficulties into the mid- to late-1970s. Some parts carried on into the 1980s, but was finished as a coherent force by the late 1980s.

Micah Uetricht: What was meant by “communism”?

Max Elbaum: The movement arose at a time when Third-World revolutions were shaking the empire, and when several of the leading organizations within those revolutions identified with Marxism-Leninism — versions of it that were not strictly within the ideological niche of the Soviet Union, particularly the Chinese Communist Party and the Cubans. The NCM identified with those movements politically and ideologically, and defined itself as building a genuinely revolutionary party as opposed to what it saw as “reformism” or “revisionism” of the Communist Party USA.

The idea was to build a new revolutionary vanguard on the basis of a more orthodox, left version of Marxism-Leninism, one especially inspired by the liberation movements then existing throughout what we called the Third World.

Micah Uetricht: Why was the NCM so ascendent in the post-New Left?

Max Elbaum: It attracted a plurality of people who turned to revolutionary politics — not necessarily a majority, but a plurality. It was particularly strong in freedom movements from communities of color among those who turned to revolutionary politics. People who went into it had an extremely strong commitment to revolutionary politics and made sustained efforts to sink roots in the working class and oppressed communities.

The largest left newspaper of the time, the Guardian, embraced these politics. It was a time when the Chinese, Vietnamese and Cuban Communist parties and other left-led national liberation movements had very high prestige, and this movement identified with those forces. All of this gave the movement initiative.

Micah Uetricht: Your book isn’t really a defense of the NCM. Most of it is quite critical. But you also repeatedly point out some of the positive features of that movement. Can you briefly sketch out the good and the bad from those movements?

Max Elbaum: My book is an effort to document what the movement did and thought and what its components and parts were. So in a sense, it’s resource material for people to draw their own conclusions of what the strengths and weaknesses were. (Though I do, at the end, draw my own balance sheet.)

For my part, on the positive side, the movement did see how central empire-building and racism were to U.S. capitalism. There was a strong commitment to sinking roots in those communities that had the greatest potential to make radical change. The movement grasped the importance of collective action and the idea of people prioritizing political activity and advancing it in a collective way.

The movement did make some headway in breaking out of a U.S.-centric view of the world. And there was an attempt to learn from and offer ideas to revolutionaries in other countries, and a strong sense of internationalism. In its early years, certain component parts did some interesting work on U.S. politics, especially on the particular role of the special oppression of communities of color.

On the negative side, all sides of the movement were afflicted with a misassessment of the conditions in the country, especially the resilience of capitalism. Lots of people were off-base in the late 1960s and 1970s, but the movement couldn’t adjust when it became clear that the motion of national politics was moving to the right.

The ideological frameworks of the different component parts of the movement were rigid in their quest for orthodoxy — seeing Marxism-Leninism as a kind of omniscient science. Those ideological frameworks were off-base.

The movement was generally afflicted by ultra-left tendencies and a tendency to polarize forces that weren’t, in their view, as revolutionary as them. The model of organization the movement implemented was “miniaturized Leninism”; we essentially built small sects instead of flexible, mass revolutionary groups. This was related to our misassement of the historical conditions. There was a proliferation of sectarian attitudes over political differences, some of which were important but many weren’t.

(Continue Reading)

[gotgifsandmusings]

Unnecessarily Dramatic (maybe? Is it?) SM Update

Oh hi. I have no idea how to start this, lol.

So...it’s not exactly subtle that I’ve had a downturn in content and posts lately. And this was something that I was really debating whether to even explicitly talk about, because a lot of times posts or videos about dialing back from social media always feel very dramatic to me? Or self-serving in some way. Like, “Oh yes, I must be that important to necessitate this.”

But idk, the more I thought about it, I really really do appreciate anyone who’s read/commented on my writing, or followed me, or sent me thoughtful asks, and whatnot. I think it’s cool that we’ve been able to engage with each other over media, and that platform has allowed us to really delve into a ton of issues. Remember when I wrote a sourced series of essays on tropes in GoT Season 5 through the framework of ambivalent sexism just ‘cause?

And even though sometimes that engagement is me you know, being snotty to a rude anon, for the most part my writing analysis online, then fanfic, then podcasting, then building up a website and a community for thoughtful analysis, and even a youtube video here and there has been something really meaningful and rewarding to me. The fact that it’s maybe touched others? At least enough to the point where I’m getting anons saying, “hope you’re okay”? That’s very humbling.

So yeah, I do feel like I want to loop you in on what’s been going on, which I will do below the cut. (Apologies those on mobile.)

I’m starting to feel like a dishonest cars salesman here. “Oh yeah, I’ll totally write about that! I’m definitely going to have this piece then!” Even just the number of answered asks, most of which are incredibly good and insightful, you know, pains me that I can’t get to them. Hell, my drafts folder has about 40 partially answered asks. One is even about Sondheim! Why can’t I finish it??

Here’s the deal. For the past...6 months (maybe? A year?), I’ve kept saying, “when life calms down.” Or “Life has been a bear lately”...whatever that means. And I’m only now at a point where I’m realizing, my life isn’t going to calm down. In fact, my life—that being my primary career, my situation where I am, and my relationships to friends and family—sort of needs to be a priority for me.

Full confession: the reason I’ve been so prolific up until this point was due to the fact that my previous “day jobs” as I called them, while in line with what I studied and cared about, were something I could do in about 15 hours a week, if that. There was a finite amount of work, I was decent at it, and I really didn’t have an ambitious drive at these jobs because they really weren’t as focused or meaningful as I would have liked and the environments were not conducive to my personal professional growth.

So what did I do? I mailed it in. I found more personal fulfillment with what I was writing about online. It began with the Legend of Korra finale, which had excited me so much that I actually wrote my first rambling thoughts about it during work hours. At the time, it was on a Friday going into the “Christmas Break” where I’d be working from home, so it seemed okay to push work off. But I got a taste for that, got in a pattern of doing the bare minimum, and then focused my efforts on the stuff I actually wanted to be doing—chatting about media.  

And part of that was also due to the fact that I was in a major social rut. I was pretty isolated since I tend to have a smaller group of close friends rather than a large bunch of friends, and our career paths just kind of scattered us. I’d maybe get together with people once a month? I also loathed the dating game. I was, for the most part, working at a small startup with two middle-aged ladies and no options there, which left me with tinder and cupid. I laugh because I’ve gotten asks like, “wow you must have been a busy bisexual bee.” Yeah...3 or 5 months would pass and I’d realize I hadn’t gotten laid, so I’d worry that was a sign I was depressed, and I’d go on some random cupid date to have tangible evidence that that wasn’t the case.

My point being, writing about media and engaging with tons of people online was really appealing, and became an outlet for me in a way I never could have anticipated.

But that entire situation changed. For one, I began dating my now-fiance (as much as I hate that word) over a year ago. It was long-distance, so not a huge change at first. Then my sister moved home and in with me last fall, and my family commitments dialed up (3 cats and a baby!). Which was fantastic, it really was. But I think you probably noticed I produced less and less as this went on.

And then, finally, I moved my ass halfway across the country because long-distance wasn’t making any sense anymore. I wasn’t willing to move without a job lined up, so job hunting began to focus me again on my professional career. While I love writing and analyzing, I’ve never seriously considered this as a career path for myself. Which is no knock on anyone who does—it’s just pursuing that life formally is not for me. I have an engineering degree and a Masters in environmental policy, and the latter is truly what I’ve always wanted as my focus. I was finally able to hone in on a job that made sense for me with my background, not just a job that was around when I needed one.

I found it, I moved mid-April, and I absolutely love what I’m doing. The job, the workplace, everything has so exceeded my expectations in every way, and for once I have like, career aspirations where I am. This doesn’t mean I’m any less passionate about analyzing media, but it does mean that professionally, I won’t mail it in anymore to make time for that. My job has to be my focus, and in fact I’m likely going to be working 50 hour weeks to do accomplish what I want here. And don’t worry—there’s amazing work from home policies and PTO, so it’s not a “work you to your grave” kind of deal. I legitimately want to be doing this, because I care about what I’m doing and feel like it matters.

What does that mean though? Well, it means I have to take a step back from the amount I’ve been doing. I can’t be copyediting every night for The Fandomentals, I can’t be writing a weekly piece, and the GoT rewatch, and two podcasts, and longer retrospectives, and other planned co-analysis, and fanfic, and answering all the asks I want to, and checking my site email to organize and manage our team of contributors. Certainly not if I want to sleep, work out, keep up with the news, be around family and friends, and have some semblance of downtime. That I was able to do all this stuff this long is actually probably not the best sign, you know?

So I’m trying to really focus my efforts. I plan to keep both podcasts going, because I really love doing that. The GoT rewatch is going to keep on keepin’ on as well, as planned. Julia and I will still finish out our retrospectives for S7, and I’ve even already rewatched the Dragonstone scenes. But my weekly pieces in addition to all this are going to stop, unless I’m super excited by something. I have no idea about my fanfic, to be honest, and I think that’s going to have to be a situational mood-based judgement call. With regards to the asks and social media interaction...I will do what I can, but as you’ve been seeing, it’s just not something I have a ton of time for. I haven’t even gotten back into my gifcapping funky flow!

For my LoK blog, god, I don’t even know how the definitive rankings are going to end up. I want to try, but really who knows. Because the other thing is that I come home from work and am actually like...intellectually tired. I need a break. I feel like such a boring drudge now, but it’s true. (Also BOTW is a great destresser.)

So yeah, there’s really no good way to end this. I’m just letting you know why I’m going to be sparse. But that also I’m doing well, so no worries there, and thank you so much for anyone who’s sent something caring about this.

And I’m still me, of course. If some GoT spoiler comes out or promo pictures or something, you can bet I’m going to be memeing like normal, and probably having stupid back-and-forths with some bellicose anon. If I feel like ranting about some movie or comic for 15 minutes in a video, I’ll likely do that. But I just can’t keep placing expectations on myself to do more next month, and it’s not fair to you to keep saying “when life calms down.” Life isn’t supposed to calm down. It’s not an inconvenience that gets in the way of me talking about my feelings on a piece of media. And moving forward, I’m going to do what I can to have a more balanced approach to all of that.

[localfreshies]

New Post has been published on Local Freshies | Be a local wherever you go

New Post has been published on https://localfreshies.com/best-ski-resorts-to-visit-by-month-in-north-america/

Best Ski Resorts To Visit By Month In North America

For surfers, the film “The Endless Summer” is the ultimate dream. Chasing storms all around the world to find the perfect wave. For skiers & snowboarders, it’s the opportunity to have the “Endless Winter”. With the white stuff falling from the heavens from New Mexico all the way up into British Columbia, it’s time to start chasing. Here’s a list of the 10 best ski resorts to visit by month for the ULTIMATE ski season in North America.

October

Wolf Creek

Image taken by Sarah Moore

In a normal season, you might want to plop yourself in the historic town of Georgetown giving you access to the kings of snowmaking – Loveland Resort & Arapahoe Basin. But for 2018-19, things are MUCH different. Wolf Creek, the snowiest resort in Colorado, has just gotten blessed with 30 inches of snow and has the MOST terrain open in the country. With more snow in the forecast, this is a great option for October. And, after a long day on the slopes, there’s nothing better than a good soak in one of the 23 terraced hot springs on the banks of the San Juan River in downtown Pagosa Springs, CO.

November

Mt. Baker

Chairlift at the Mt. Baker Ski Area Image taken by: Carl Schmidt

After a month of getting your legs back into shape in Colorado, it’s time to head to the Pacific Northwest. Mt. Baker is the snowiest resort in the world, and if the weather acts accordingly around November, the storms begin to get colder and starts dropping copious amounts of snow. Once they get the mandatory 36 inch base, Mt. Baker can typically open almost all their terrain by opening day. Personally, we’ve been here on opening days in mid-November, and they’ve been better than most mid-season storms at other major resorts. Of course, this is weather dependent.

December

Grand Targhee

Gettin’ a pow shot at Grand Targhee – skier: Eric Anderson – Photo Courtesy: Grand Targhee Resort and the Idaho Ski Areas Association

If Grand Targhee went to your high school, it would’ve been given the moniker of “Mr. Reliable”. While it’s more famous big brother on the other side of the Tetons gets all the attention, this hamlet provides some of the best uncrowded powder skiing anywhere. In fact, they’re the ONLY resort in North America with a perfect record of full operation at every Christmas since records have been kept.

January

Powder Highway

Image by: Local Freshies

The holiday crowds have begun to appear. During this part of the season, it’s less about the snow and more about getting away from the masses. To do this, it’s time to head north into Canada and hit the infamous Powder Highway. Home to seven resorts that are easily drivable with geographically different storm paths, you can just follow the snow. And if the budget allows, this area has the highest concentration of cat-skiing/heli-skiing operations in the world. A month is the perfect time frame just to get a taste of what this place has to offer.

February

Little Cottonwood Canyon

Image taken by: Otnavuskire

Steep & Deep is the name of the game in the Little Cottonwood Canyon. Snowbird, with over 3,000 vertical feet of uninterrupted fall line skiing covered annually in 500 inches of legendary Wasatch snow, is everyone’s dream of skiing. Indeed, you may never want to ski anywhere else again. And for those purists, you can head a bit further up the canyon to Alta. Here you’ll find a ski experience that is still like it was before corporate America touched the sport.

March

Lake Tahoe

Now THIS is how you finish off a season

March in Tahoe has been appropriately nicknamed Miracle March for a reason. Even in the worst winters, it seems like the storm track points directly at Lake Tahoe in March. This is when all the other parts of the country look at the snow report with envy as resorts around the lake report multiple FEET of snow overnight compared to their measly couple of inches. Just as quickly as the snow falls, the clouds break revealing the famous deep blue sky.

April

Arapahoe Basin

Here’s Looking at You Kid Image taken by: Zach Dischner

While other destinations focus on luxury, it’s always been about the skiing here. Affectionately called “the Legend,” it’s one of Colorado’s oldest and arguably purist ski resorts left in the state. And the best time to visit this resort is April. Traditionally one of the snowiest months of the season, being situated at 10,780 feet means that the snow quality stays great throughout the entire month. Definitely one of the best late season destinations in North America.

May

Ski Big 3 (Lake Louise / Sunshine Village)

Image by: Local Freshies

Heading up to Lake Louise mid-winter might seem like a good idea but it can be downright freezing even for the hardiest folk. Luckily by May, the chill in the air has gone away and been replaced with plentiful warm sunshine. Don’t worry… mid-winter powder conditions prevail because of its northern latitude and there’s tons of fun to be had in Banff just a few miles down the road.

June

Mammoth Mountain

What can else be said about Mammoth besides it being the “king” of epic late season skiing. Due to its location and high base elevation, even on the warmest of days it typically gets down below freezing at night. This ensures that the best conditions are possible. Plus, Mammoth’s dedication to grooming make it the best candidate to hit in June.

July / August

Timberline

Overview of Mt. Hood & Timberline Lodge – Image taken by: Severin Sadjina

As summer rages on, winter has lost the annual fight across the country and the snow has receded in most places deep into the alpine. Luckily, there’s one last bastion of hope for snow sliders – Timberline. The infamous Palmer snowfield offers the only year-round lift-served skiing in North America. This mecca for snow addicts offers summer camps for both teenagers AND adults alike.

Of course, this is all “Pie in the sky” type of thinking, and you never what the weather patterns will do for the upcoming season. But, it’s still fun to fantasize on buying a Sprinter and living the van life chasing the snow until the local resorts start spinning their lifts. Still frothing at the mouth? Don’t forget to read our Best Bets For Early Season In North America.