#house. and id see her rarely and not get to stay w her that often/long...

[magnoliamyrrh]

i think that whole "never felt safe growing up and most of my life" thing did real damage to my psyche lmao

[szopenhauer]

What star sign is the last person you text messaged? Aries

How did you feel when you woke up today? not well

Do you know what the person you're dating is doing at this moment? napping

Who was the last person to make you cry with laughter? my gf

Who was the last person you talked about sex/love with? either her or my father

Who introduced you to the person you're in a relationshop with? my high school classmate K.K.

How many brothers does your father have? two

When was the last time you did something which you knew was wrong? I don’t know what’s wrong and what not, ugh...

Do you still speak to your first crush? nope

If you could get your own house with one friend, who would you pick? dad but I’d prefer to live alone

Which is worse, too-tight clothes or much too-loose clothes? too tight are worse

What is something that you are willing to fight for? hmm...

If you jump, can you touch the ceiling of the room you’re in? noooo

Which do you think is worse: ear aches or tooth aches? tooth aches

How many different colors are you wearing right now?  3 (4 counting panties)

You can only listen to one band for the rest of your life, who do you pick? omg I can’t choose :o

Do you like big or small cars better? big

What store do you get the majority of your shoes from? *shrug*

What place, in your mind, is heaven on earth? How about hell on earth? there’s no such thing as heaven on Earth to me as I would bring myself there and ruin everything but almost whole planet is hell mostly because of people

Do you think there is anything scary about midnight? midnight is the time of ghosts but no longer minute before and/or after :P 

Can you snap with both of your hands? yep

In your opinion what is the absolute worst house chore? laundry?

How young do you think is too young to get married? definitely under 20 but I think it’s best to get married 30+

Who do you think is the dumbest superhero?  I can’t believe Green lantern is an actual superhero...

Would you rather be a hair stylist or a clothes designer? clothes designer

Would you rather be 3 inches taller or shorter than you are now? taller

Are there any foods that you think smell good, but taste bad? possibly

Would you ever stay overnight at any of your neighbors houses? why would I? 

Do you think it would be cooler to play a hero or the villain in a movie? hero

If you had the last name of your favorite actor, what would your name be? I like many actors so...

how many syllables does your first name consist of?: 3

do you know someone who is allergic to chocolate?: used to know

have you worn a dress [casual, formal, etc] within the past week?: not within the past week

when was the last time you saw the last person you kissed?: days ago

is that person your significant other?: yup

last person you talked to on the phone and what was it about?: mom, I informed her she probably didn’t take out the matches from my pocket and now she’s washing my shorts with ‘em inside the machine and my instinct was right so she turned it off in the last moment, minutes or even seconds later water would soak the package and that could ruin the clothes, I wish she checked or asked while taking my stuff away

got any plans today?: been to laboratory, done shopping but am too tired to help my parents in carrying wood 

were you born in an odd or even numbered year?: even

did you drive anywhere at all today?: took the bus

which of your parents did you see last?: both at once

describe your current shirt: black tee Nie każdy musi mnie lubić w końcu nie każdy ma dobry gust with Lil My

are you currently listening to music?: I’m very picky about songs today

do you fill out your own surveys or do you think it’s just weird?: I do

where did you buy the shoes you last wore?: Biedronka (Tom & Rose)

last disappointment?: health issues 

do you still talk to the person you first kissed?: yeah

did you seriously believe that the opposite sex had cooties in elementary?: I didn’t think about that 

did you take a nap today?: I barely ever take naps in general

name something random in your car: I don’t own a car

would/did you cheat on someone for revenge or if they wouldn’t find out? neither

would you rather be remembered for something bad or forgotten? forgotten

would you date someone twice your age for money? only if I really had to survive and there was no other way but not forever?

rate your self-confidence, 1 being insecure, and 10 being cocky. I’m insecure but not sure how much 

are you content? I wish

would you knowingly be who someone cheats on someone else with? cheats with me on someone they pretend to love? hell no

would you sleep with a teacher to pass a class you were failing? ewww, yuk

have you ever contemplated physically hurting yourself or another? mhm

are you prejudice against any groups of people? I am

is there anything you chose to be ignorant about? (war, animal rights, etc) maybe

would you replace any family members if possible (& who)? oh well...

do you lie when asked how you’re doing? what for? to blame then for not noticing? to be an ass who’s lying?...

do you have any plans for tomorrow? meeting with M.

are you able to get a tan? not much

the next time you are on an airplane, where will you be traveling to? umm... no thx

are you satisfied with the picture on your id card? could be worse but also could be better

what are your chances of getting with your crush? I'm taken

what color is your car? no car!

is the song you’re currently listening to being sung by a male or female? two women

where did you get the shirt that you’re wearing? it was a gift

how tall is the last person you kissed? taller than me

is anybody in the room with you right now? not rn

how long have you been with your significant other, if you have one? 3 months

do you enjoy dried fruit? meh

How’s your day going? blergh

What does your umbrella look like? I borrow my parents’ umbrella, I hate umbrellas

Do you share a room with anyone? there are furniture with stuff inside that don’t belong to me

Do you have socks on? Describe them. grey

Are you one of those people who has like a hundred apps on their phone? I have spotify, choices, tumblr, tik tok, fb and messenger

Do you have good reflexes? I guess

Picture you think is cute.

Do you like blowing bubbles? sometimes

Are you better at posing good questions or coming up with outrageous dares? depends

Has there been a celebrity death that really affected you? I cried after some celebs but that’s all

If you’re out of high school, have you stayed in touch with your high school friends?  I haven’t :(

Do you think, if it came down to it, that you’d be able to kill someone? I believe I might

Are you good at rating things? am not

Do you get into a lot of arguments? :x

Can you pass for older than you are? can’t even pass for my real age lmfao

Do you talk a lot? at times

Are you capable of finishing a game of Monopoly? it’s not that hard

Do you own any tie-dye clothing? I hate tie-dye 

How much soda do you drink in a week? - Do you like being asked questions? love Are you nosy? slightly

How well can you pay attention to someone talking? depends What is the closest yellow thing to you? rosary Would you mind living on a farm? I’d try Are you a patient person? wouldn’t say so What annoys you the most about people? what doesn’t... Does your computer freeze a lot? my browser freezes right after turning on the computer and my internet dies often

Have you ever ate glue? wtf

When is the last time you took a picture? this day

If you could know one thing about the future, what would it be? when will I die for example

Do you like Ellen Degeneres? she’s awful

Are you comfortable dancing in public? whatever

Would you like to live to be 110 years old? I wanna die already

Do you like getting your picture taken? I’m ugly

Do you like being the X or the O when you play tic tac toe? X

What do you think is the most popular name for a girl? I checked:

Zofia Hanna Julia Zuzanna Alicja Maja Helena Maria Oliwia Pola

What about a boy?

Jan Franciszek Antoni Aleksander Stanisław Jakub Adam Leon Mikołaj Szymon

*do ya like any?

How many people are around you right now? my family’s in the kitchen eating so I’m alone

Do spicy foods give you heartburn or make you make you gassy? both and more

Is body hair attractive or unattractive to you? it’s normal/natural?

Do you prefer bare feet or socks? socks

Hard wood floor or carpet? hardwood

Would you ever want to work in a toy store? yasss

Do you like asking questions better or answering? answering

Do you follow your head or heart more? head

Would you rather give up your hand or your foot? foot

Have you ever tried crowd surfing? too risky and no fun

If you could have 16 wishes, tell me just one you wish: I don’t need 16, 3 are enough

Do you like the movie Bambi? If so, who is your favorite on there? I don’t remember Bambi 

Would you rather be on the computer all day or watch TV? computer

Would you rather be a police man or a firefighter? police

Do you like jokes or riddles better? jokes

Do you like onion rings? disgusting

Do you like odd or even numbers better? even are easier to count

Last song you heard? Marroon 5 - Animals

Ocean or lake? lake

Do you know a lot of people with the middle name Marie? weird but no, Anna is more popular

Do you like loud or quiet people better? smth in between unless in public - quiet strangers are better

Taking pictures or getting your picture taken? taking

Do you like chocolate? meh

Favorite day of the year? New year’s eve?

Favorite holiday? same

Crayons or markers? markers

Snookie or Vinny? Snookie

have you ever been to an animal shelter? that would break my heart

are you tired right now?

who is the worst actor or actress in your opinion? there are plenty  have you ever bought someone else lingerie? nope where are your parents right now? run around the house like crazy if you have a dog, does it bark a lot? luckily not, he howls rarely too have you ever seen a magic show? sure can you juggle? I tried to learn but failed

[avanneman]

John McCain, Paul Ryan, and the Myth of the Virtuous Republican

John McCain is one of those guys who, when he dies, people say “he was the last of a dying breed.”

No one will ever say that about Paul Ryan.

John McCain was a genuine war hero, a man who preferred to face hardship, torture, and even death rather than abandon his comrades. Paul Ryan has the suit, haircut, and soul of a TV personality. Yet both ended their careers kissing Donald Trump’s ass. Strange! More than strange!

It could justly be said—and often was—that John McCain approached politics with the mindset of the fighter pilot he used to be, an adrenaline junkie who wanted to see every issue as a struggle of good against evil, or at least us against them, which, in his mind, constituted the same thing. He was always wanting to go to war, wars in which, he was sure, the good guys always won and everyone’s problems were settled once and for all. My most vivid memory of McCain is video showing him striding around Baghdad in an armored vest, surrounded by heavily armed troops, with assault helicopters circling overhead, and proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”.

McCain made himself a national figure in the 2000 Republican primaries by wowing the national press corps with his war stories, young men and women stunned to be in the presence of a man who’d seen and endured things they, with their pampered backgrounds, could not even begin to imagine. This was a man!

And so he was, but as a senator he wasn’t so much. McCain was furious—well beyond furious—at George Bush because he believed, with some reason, that he’d been done out of the Republican nomination by some seriously subterranean backstabbing during the South Carolina primary, which may well be true, but one can also wonder how deliberate noncombatant Georgie W. beat a war hero in what is often regarded as the most militaristic state in the union.

McCain continued to cultivate the press in defeat, playing the beloved role of “maverick”, charging like a bull at a variety of issues, but never really succeeding at anything. For McCain, the passionate display of “passion” was its own purpose and end. His was not to reason why, and he never did.

Yet however harshly one wishes to criticize McCain, his ultimate obsequiousness to Trump remains baffling. Trump publicly ridiculed McCain’s heroism. Why wasn’t McCain at the Democratic Convention, standing beside Hillary Clinton, whose foreign policy views were almost identical to his own, and proclaiming her “America’s Choice”? What kept the proud maverick in such humiliating harness?

Well, as I say, I’m baffled. Perhaps he was intimidated by the Republican base, which had shifted so heavily against the “free trade, open borders” orthodoxy to which he had always subscribed.

But, in fact, there was always a bit of smoke and mirrors when it came to McCain’s “bipartisanship”. He had a knack for choosing issues, like campaign reform and immigration reform, that never, or rarely, managed to make it into law.1 On tax and spending issues, he almost always voted the straight party line, never giving an inch to either Clinton or Obama, though he did draw back a little from the “burn the house down” efforts of the newly elected Tea Party Republicans to drive the federal government into default—though probably more because he was worried about the possible impact on defense spending, which was the only fiscal issue he really cared about.2

But as for “leadership”, McCain was almost always absent. He voted in favor of removing President Clinton from office and, most infamously, brought Sarah Palin and her brand of “Americanism” into the national spotlight for the first time. And when the country really needed some bipartisan leadership, during the first onslaught of the Great Recession when Obama took office, McCain said, and did, nothing.

What’s remarkable about Paul Ryan is that, for a long time, he received press almost the equal of McCain’s, with far less substance. While McCain’s warrior ego was always front and center, deciphering Paulie’s slippery humility has always been a chore. He eagerly promoted—and the press eagerly bought—his Wisconsin Boy Scout demeanor. His incessantly repeated claim to be a “wonk” was, I think, deliberately designed to insulate him from the continuing bro-ha-ha3 over “social issues”—abortion, homosexuality, the “war against Christmas”, etc.—that so obsessed most ambitious Republicans. Paulie always looked east, towards Wall Street, but I’ve never been sure of his motivation. Was he gunning for the presidency? Then why stay in the House?

For many years, Ryan was sort of a hero—or perhaps fig-leaf—to many Republicans. In fact, to “recovering Republicans” like (former) conservative broadcaster Charles Sykes (author of How the Right Lost Its Mind), WashPost columnist and long-time Literature R Us whipping boy George F. Will, and former Republican strategist Rick Wilson (author of Everything Trump Touches Dies), who, unlike the first two, is deeply disappointed in the “new Paulie,” Ryan is (or was) a true hero. Nonpartisan centrists like Josh Barro are also deeply disappointed in the Ryan reinvention, which I will demonstrate—at length–is not new at all.

Sykes, in his book, gives us a taste of the true Paulie believer:

Whatever you might think of his policies, Paul Ryan is inarguably the most formidable intellectual leader the Republican Party has had for decades. For years, he was known for his dogged advocacy of budget and entitlement reform in opposition from his party’s establishment. His rise from conservative backbencher to Speaker could have been seen as one of the great success stories of the conservative movement. “I spent more time, I’d say, in the backbench than the leadership,” Ryan told me during a conversation on my last radio show. “The party really tried to isolate me a number of years ago and tried to explain to our members, ‘do not touch what Ryan is talking about, don’t deal with these fiscal issues, these entitlements, it’s political suicide.” And I just decided instead of trying to win the argument internally, I tried to win it externally, and that took hold,” he explained. “What happened, really, was the 2010 election, I think. The 2010 election brought all these, sort of Tea Party conservative Republicans into office.”

I suppose it’s possible to pack more self-serving nonsense into one paragraph than Paulie (and Sykes) just did there, but it isn’t easy. Ryan was always an eager self-promoter, though, as I say, it’s a bit of a mystery—again with the mystery! Republicans are mysterious!—exactly who Ryan was trying to sell himself to. Ryan has spent nearly all his adult life working in politics, either as a legislative aide or a congressman, and has claimed that all he wanted was to be chair of the House Budget Committee, but I don’t quite believe that. He has always appeared to me to have national aspirations, but for what? If you want to be president, you have to get out of the House, and, as far as I know, Ryan never showed interest in running either for governor or senator. If he wanted money, sure, a Budget Committee chair can retire after five or six years and make $2 or $3 million a year as a big-time lobbyist, but why bust your ass in your fifties for $2 or $3 million a year when you could have been making $20 or $30 million a year on Wall Street in your twenties?

So is Ryan telling the truth when he claims that he’s just a wonk, just wants to make the world a better place via free-market capitalism? No, he isn’t. To coin a phrase, he’s a big fat liar. Ryan lists the late Rep. Jack Kemp as his mentor and role model. Kemp was perhaps the most passionate advocate of the holy gospel of supply-side economics this side of George Gilder. Both men believed that the absolutely unfettered free market would solve all of mankind’s ills. Ryan was/is also a disciple of the legendary Ayn Rand, the Queen of Mean, saying that he frequently reread Ayn’s exercise in übermenschlichkeit, Atlas Shrugged, but, grudgingly aware that Ayn’s atheism and frequently expressed hostility to the Catholic Church (Ryan was raised a Catholic) didn’t sit well with the evangelical set, pulled in his horns just a bit, so to speak, and more recently pronounced himself a big fan of supposed big thinker Yuval Levin, who celebrated the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 2010, so hailed by Ryan as essentially his work (“I just decided instead of trying to win the argument internally, I tried to win it externally, and that took hold”), with a piece for the National Interest entitled “Beyond the Welfare State”.

According to Ryan, Levin “does a very good job of articulating why these are good ideas and the right way to go and how they’re philosophically connected with one another and consistent.” Indeed, Levin has made a career out of pretending to be a student of Edmund Burke, but back in 2011 he sounded a lot more like Herbert Hoover, making a multi-pronged assault on the welfare state: “The reason is partly institutional: The administrative state is dismally inefficient and unresponsive, and therefore ill-suited to our age of endless choice and variety. The reason is also partly cultural and moral: The attempt to rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility has undermined the family, self-reliance, and self-government. But, in practice, it is above all fiscal: The welfare state has turned out to be unaffordable, dependent as it is upon dubious economics and the demographic model of a bygone era.”

Despite his “the bottom line is the bottom line” pitch, Levin was not at all shy about making Randy/Hooverian generalizations about the welfare state as the source of modern-day moral collapse:

This is the second major failing of this vision of society [the first is that it is grossly inefficient] — a kind of spiritual failing. Under the rules of the modern welfare state, we give up a portion of the capacity to provide for ourselves and in return are freed from a portion of the obligation to discipline ourselves. Increasing economic collectivism enables increasing moral individualism, both of which leave us with less responsibility, and therefore with less grounded and meaningful lives.

Moreover, because all citizens — not only the poor — become recipients of benefits, people in the middle class come to approach their government as claimants, not as self-governing citizens, and to approach the social safety net not as a great majority of givers eager to make sure that a small minority of recipients are spared from devastating poverty but as a mass of dependents demanding what they are owed. It is hard to imagine an ethic better suited to undermining the moral basis of a free society.4

In other words, it is not only means-tested welfare programs that are morally corrupting—and it is these that the general public thinks of (and often resents) as “welfare”—but Social Security and Medicare as well. In fact, they’re the really bad ones!

Unsurprisingly (but predictably) Levin doesn’t have the courage to follow his own argument and simply eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Instead, he’d make them means-tested. Most people would still get some retirement assistance (but why wouldn’t this still be “bad”?), but most people—the middle class in particular—wouldn’t get as much. And everyone would have to buy their own health insurance, with some assistance from the federal government to cushion the blow: “This approach would seek to let people be active consumers, rather than passive recipients of benefits — which would be good both for the federal budget (since consumer pressure in a free market keeps costs down far better than price controls) and for the character of our nation.” Naturally, the less expensive social programs, such as Head Start, would be trimmed and, ultimately, one could hope, be eliminated, since they simply waste money and make us more dependent.

It’s “interesting” to look both backwards and forwards with regard to Levin’s manifesto, looking backwards first to Ryan’s own conduct in office when, as he pictured it, he was more or less howling in the wilderness, rejected by the Republican establishment and forced, basically, to take it to the streets. Because what did Ryan do? He voted for every budget-busting Bush proposal, starting with the massive, and massively unnecessary and counter-productive, Bush tax cuts, which turned a $172 billion surplus in 2001 into a $210 billion deficit in 2002 (using 2014 dollars), and continuing through all the “unnecessary” (not to mention morally corrupting) social programs like No Child Left Behind, which added billions in education spending, through the ultimate budget-buster, the disastrous invasion of Iraq (the bold Mr. Levin makes no mention of defense spending at all in his manifesto) plus the ultimate outrage, a new entitlement program, adding billions to the Medicare tab yearly to cover prescription drugs, with no provision for funding whatsoever! Mr. Ryan, one has to say, believes that words speak louder than actions.

Supposedly, the 2010 election brought “Paul Ryan” Republicans into Congress. This is nonsense. As Ryan and Levin surely noticed, the Republicans’ ace in the hole in the 2010 election was Barack Obama’s decision, via the Affordable Care Act, not to talk about cutting Medicare, but to actually cut it—something that, of course, neither Ryan nor Levin ever talked about. Over and over again, Republicans promised never to cut “a dime of Grandma’s Medicare”, and of course they never did. Ryan and Levin “proposed” to cut Medicare 10 years down the line, which is rather like promising to go on a diet in 10 years,5 but as for the present, hey, nothing’s too good for Grandma! And Social Security, presumably the most corrupting program of all, at least in Levin’s philosophy, would never have lost a dime under Ryan’s proposals.

The one entitlement Ryan was always willing to cut was, of course, Medicaid, cutting spending for the poor, not to balance the budget but rather to hand out tax cuts to the rich, which was always the first priority of all.6 Ryan produced a variety of budget plans that were supposed to produce a balanced budget in X number of years, but they were always phony, with the popular provisions, like reduced tax rates, spelled out, while the unpopular ones, like “base broadening” (elimination of tax exemptions and other “loopholes”) left for further discussion. Medicaid would be cut immediately (it was somehow “fair” to cut benefits for the poor immediately, but not to do the same to the middle class, i.e., “Grandma”), and further spending cuts would be made in “domestic discretionary spending”, which had expanded enormously under Bush from 2001 through 2008, under legislation for which Ryan had repeatedly voted. But these cuts, like the “base broadening”, were left unspecified, to be worked out in further negotiation. In other words, Ryan would spell out the popular provisions, which would, in fact, expand the deficit dramatically, and the leave it to the Democrats to repair all the damage he had created. It would be the Democrats who would have the responsibility for balancing the budget, not Paul Ryan.

It was all a shell game, as Paul Krugman and others repeatedly pointed out, a mere partisan hustle, but it made moderate Republicans like Sykes and Will and Wilson proud. We’re serious! We’re fiscally responsible! We’re still the party of ideas! We’re not like those crazy Democrats, who are turning us into Greece!

Well, that was then. When the era of Trump dawned, Ryan was clearly in a quandary. His Wall Street buddies, whose willing servant he had always been, had no use for Trump’s bad ass, xenophobic, race-baiting populism. But Trump had the votes, so Ryan caved. And once he started, the caving never stopped.

To be fair, Ryan caved to everybody, everybody with power. He finally got his chance to cut Medicaid in the course of overturning the Affordable Care Act, but in his eagerness to both help the rich, by eliminating one of those opprobrious Obamacare abominations that actually increased taxes on innocent millionaires/billionaires, and stick it to the poor by denying health insurance to millions, he overreached himself. “It’s curious,” Republican health care maven Avik Roy opined, “that extending tax cuts [to the rich] was a higher priority for the House than addressing the fact that the bill will make insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans.” Actually, it isn’t, but fortunately the naked hypocrisy of it all caused three Republican senators, including John McCain, greatly to his credit, to gag and Obamacare was granted another day.

Yes, Paulie was denied on that occasion, but he was not denied on his tax bill, where the hypocrisy was even greater, but with so much money on the table, well, what’s a little nudity among friends? I mean, this is the way God made us!

As originally crafted, Ryan’s tax bill was revenue neutral, thanks to a “controversial” provision, a “border tax adjustment” that would have brought in $1.5 trillion over 10 years, that was furiously opposed by most corporate outfits, including Koch Inc. Ryan could have said to them, “okay, guys, you don’t like my proposal. So how are we going to make this thing revenue neutral?” But he didn’t say that. Both Ryan and the Koch folks, who had been shouting, shouting, shouting “It’s the deficit, stupid!” for eight long years, turned around and added a cool $1.5 trillion to the deficit at a minimum7 and celebrated! And then followed that up with a budget-busting spending package with both massive and entirely unnecessary increases in defense spending and equally large increases for “domestic discretionary spending”, which Republicans supposedly hate!

Charles Wilson (remember him?) at least had the honesty to be openly ashamed. Writing in his book Everything Trump Touches Dies, Wilson wrote

The bill does nothing to reduce the complexity, expense, opacity, and general brain-frying shittiness of the tax code for ordinary Americans. So much for our “Do your taxes on a postcard!” rhetoric. The tax code, baroque and ludicrously convoluted before, is even more baffling unless you can afford a fleet of corporate tax attorneys and consultants.

A prominent tax lobbyist I know wrote, “This is almost too easy. Even I feel dirty.” This person literally sat in the majority leader’s office crafting parts of the tax bill, laughing all the way to the bank. The members of the House and Senate who voted for this 479-page bill had only a few hours to consider it. I asked this lobbyist at the time what the job-creation effect would be from the corporate tax cut, and he replied, “How the fuck do I know? Something? Maybe?”

This is the legislation Paul Ryan “crafted”, or at least put his name to, and this is the legislation that John McCain voted for, a massive change to the U.S. tax code to which the U.S. Senate, the world’s greatest deliberative body, had zero input. The bill was written for them by Paul Ryan and a gaggle of lobbyists, and they contributed nothing. Decades of lying and deceit came to their full fruition. This was Paul Ryan’s achievement, and John McCain’s submission made it possible.

For whatever reason, the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992 essentially drove the Republican Party mad. Both the elite and the base were seized by a compulsive need to destroy Clintonism by any means necessary. The base seethed with paranoid rage against blacks, Hispanics, feminists, homosexuals–“the other”–while the elite sought to manage the monster and perpetuate itself first with tax cuts and “culture war” then with the intoxicating self-righteousness of a real war in the Middle East.8 But the elite discredited itself with disasters both home and abroad, and the triumph of the Tea Party signaled the collapse of elite power. For eight long years during the Obama Administration Paul Ryan served as the mask of Republican corruption. But now we see–as if it were hidden before–that the mask is as corrupt as that which it concealed.

McCain first became an advocate of campaign reform perhaps as an ass-covering measure, when he was identified as one of the “Keating Five”—five senators who aggressively promoted the interests of savings and loan hustler Charles Keating. Later, after his defeat by George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, McCain was widely, and accurately, suspected of wanting to “get” evangelical groups who helped Bush defeat him. On immigration reform, McCain, like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and, pretty much, myself), was a strong advocate of the “open borders” approach favored by Wall Street. The same could be said of Paul Ryan as well, but Ryan did not dare cross the rabid Republican base—much stronger in the House than the Senate—on this one. ↩︎

In what was very likely a fit of pique rather than common sense, McCain voted against George Bush’s 2001 tax cuts. It was rare for McCain to care about deficits, unless a Democrat was in office. ↩︎

Word accepts this spelling, because it accepts “bro” as a word (as well as “ha”). I find it hard to believe that I typed “bro-ha-ha” but apparently I did, if only because Word will correct “brohaha” to “brouhaha” rather than “bro-ha-ha”. I guess I was really drunk. ↩︎

Levin, who is Jewish (he was born in Israel), titles his discussion of the shortcomings of the welfare state “The Passing of an Illusion”. In 1927, Sigmund Freud published a withering critique of Christianity under the title The Future of an Illusion. You don’t have to be a Freudian (cause I sure ain’t one) to suspect that Levin unconsciously—but not consciously—echoed Freud’s title. ↩︎

Back in the eighties, when Ronald Reagan introduced Americans to “modern deficits” (Reagan doubled the size of the entire national debt in eight years, in constant dollars, although an expanding economy meant that as a percentage of GNP the increase was only 43%), Congress enacted several elaborate deficit reduction packages. All of them employed the same strategy: cosmetic cuts to get Congress through the next election, followed by “real” cuts afterwards. Inevitably, after the next election, the new Congress would “discover” that the “real” cuts were in fact “crazy” ones, and rewrite the legislation to push the new “real” cuts to after the next election. The notion that the Congress elected in 2010 could “force” the Congress elected in 2020 to make massive, and massively unpopular, cuts in Medicare is ludicrous. ↩︎

Levin, in his paper, briefly explains that he wants a simplified federal tax policy, with low rates. Despite his supposed obsession with soaring deficits, he doesn’t even discuss the possibility of raising taxes to reduce them, probably because he knows that would work, as it did under Clinton, and he doesn’t want to balance the budget on the backs of the rich. ↩︎

The bill made tax cuts for the rich permanent but set the tax cuts for the middle class to expire in 10 years. Now Republicans are “proposing” to make them permanent. This is probably an election-year gambit, but if it works, what are they going to do? Say they were lying? ↩︎

For many evangelicals, the events in the contemporary Middle East are a direct continuation of the events of the Bible–God’s Will in action. ↩︎

[johnwiliam19]

Should Filing Bankruptcy Be The Last Resort?

Although we’ve mentioned it time and again on the forum, it bears repeating: filing for bankruptcy is not a decision to be entered into lightly. In fact, it is important to get good information and carefully weigh your options.

Is Bankruptcy Always a Last Resort?

Having said that, delaying too long can cause unnecessary financial strain and serve to compound existing problems. Is bankruptcy always the last option? Some of the common things consumers do before they consider bankruptcy include: • Cash out their retirement funds to pay debt • Pay a debt settlement company to settle their debts • Settle their debt by dealing directly with the creditor or its attorney In some cases, these bankruptcy alternatives can be just what the doctor ordered, however in others they can put you in deeper trouble without meaningful debt relief.

Depleting Your Retirement To Pay Debt

Selling assets to avoid bankruptcy is often a bad idea and a retirement account is no exception. As Bankruptcy Lawyers in Utah like to point out to everyone who meets with us about bankruptcy…

The fact is that the lingering recession is causing a lot of people to file for bankruptcy who never thought they would. While the recession is is undoubtedly a sad turn of events, I am also seeing an even more disturbing trend. Namely, a lot of them are selling all of their property in an effort to stay current with their bills and avoid filing for bankruptcy. By the time they come to me, they have already gone through everything they own. While these efforts are always well-intentioned, they are catastrophic for their finances. In a lot of cases, people are selling assets that they would otherwise be able to keep if they would have thought about filing for bankruptcy a little sooner.

Perhaps nowhere is this point better illustrated than in the context of a retirement account. ERISA qualified 401(k) accounts and many IRAs are completely exempt in bankruptcy. This means you can file bankruptcy, shed your debts and keep your retirement. As Jacob describes, it is always difficult to see someone liquidate their retirement only to be forced into bankruptcy a few months later. For more information, see: Retirement Savings and Bankruptcy.

Debt Settlement vs. Bankruptcy

Debt settlement companies promise the world but rarely deliver. They often charge fees that far exceed the cost of bankruptcy and actually require their clients to go deep in default in order to settle their debts. Here is how the process works: you, the debtor, stop paying on your credit card accounts and other bills and instead save some of the money. When you’re deep enough in default, the creditor has written off the debt and may agree to accept a reduced payment in satisfaction of the balance. You fork over the money you’ve saved plus a hefty fee and you’re out of debt. That’s how it works sometimes, but definitely not all the time. While you’re waiting on the debt settlement company, you’re creditors are definitely not waiting on you. They’re reporting delinquencies on your credit. calling and sometimes actually suing to collect. By the time you’ve reached your debt settlement goals, your wages may already be in the process of being garnished or a judgment might have been entered against you. Sure, filing for bankruptcy can help with most of these problems, but why wait?

Negotiating With Creditors instead of Bankruptcy

While the debt settlement waiting game is expensive and often ineffective, sometimes negotiating directly with creditors can be a nice alternative to filing for bankruptcy if you already have the cash to make a deal. If you stand to have more assets liquidated in bankruptcy than you’d save in debt, dealing with the creditor through an attorney can often result in signifcant savings and a permanent solution to the problem. In these cases, bankruptcy may very well be your best option. For example, let’s say you owe $50,000 on a delinquent business loan but have $150,000 in cash and stocks. Filing for bankruptcy would result in the trustee liquidating your stock portfolio to pay your creditors, in fact, they’d likely get paid in full. In these instances, it makes much more sense to negotiate a reduced payment directly with the creditor.

Fresh Start For You

Although the costs are not insignificant, the purpose of bankruptcy is to provide those struggling with debt a fresh start. Sometimes, the bankruptcy card is only to be played as a last resort, however, in some cases it offers the most thorough relief on the best timeline. Each situation is different, if you’re contemplating bankruptcy, be sure to meet with an experienced attorney.

Free Consultation with a Bankruptcy Lawyer

If you have a bankruptcy question, or need to file a bankruptcy case, call Ascent Law now at (801) 676-5506. Attorneys in our office have filed over a thousand cases. We can help you now. Come in or call in for your free initial consultation.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Source: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/should-filing-bankruptcy-be-the-last-resort/

from Divorce Lawyer West Jordan Utah https://divorcelawyerwestjordanutah1.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/should-filing-bankruptcy-be-the-last-resort/

[sabrinajulie]

Holiday Parent Time

Child Time Sharing: It is the most wonderful time of year. The holiday season has arrived. For many people throughout Utah, it is a time for families to get together. But as I’ve seen as a family lawyer, this is not always the case for families of divorce?  Salt Lake City is home to countless families with children that have split apart. While many divorced couples share co-parenting duties. It can be a little more challenging during the holidays. However, with a little creativity and tolerance, there is no reason why everyone can’t enjoy some holiday cheer.

When it comes to divorce, Utah family law encourages both parents to be involved in the upbringing of their children. This often involves co-parenting. Ask any Salt Lake City divorce attorney and they can tell you horror stories of many couples that ended their marriage acrimoniously. But when it comes time for the holidays, there are some solutions to make those Christmas get-togethers are little more bearable.

CHILD TIME SHARING SUGGESTIONS

Comply with your divorce settlement:It is important to follow all of the court’s rulings for your co-parenting conditions. Not only is it the law, it is designed to be fair. If you have any disagreements with your ex-spouse, keep it away from the children.

Each parent should spend equal time with the children:The holidays are known as the season of giving. One of the best gifts you can give to your child is the opportunity to spend equal time with their mother and father. The court should have a holiday time-share plan.

Be respectful to your former spouse:Do not disrespect your ex-spouse in front of the children. It is easy to get into a verbal spat over how your kids should spend the holidays. But it does not make the situation better and is completely unproductive. Do not rob your child’s opportunity to enjoy their Christmas.

Be cognizant of your child’s happiness:Always place the best interests of your child first. Far too many divorced couples see child time sharing as a competition. Each parent wants to project a better image than the other. That is the wrong approach. Instead, focus on your child’s happiness. By creating a positive experience, it will also help your child enjoy their holidays with your former spouse.

Divorce can leave deep emotional scars for everyone involved–especially the children. But it does not have to always get ugly. Make the effort to peacefully co-exist with your ex. A little kindness and respect can often go a long way.

LIFE HAPPENS: DON’T LET IT HAPPEN WITHOUT A LEGAL SEPARATION

For many couples, divorce is not just an overnight decision. Rarely does someone just wake up one morning and decide that they are going to file papers. A lot of couples may even opt for a trial separation. In some cases, they may not even intend to get remarried so it just seems easier to stay living apart without formally dividing their assets.

While it might seem easier, separating without a formal agreement can leave both spouses unprotected. Whether a couple chooses a legal separation or a formal divorce, setting terms for how property should be handled is more than a prudent choice. How can living separately have a financial effect? The first issue is that a spouse may have no idea how the other spouse is spending the couple’s money. Until divorce occurs or a legal date of separation has been decided, any income earned or liability incurred is still considered marital. Longer separations even provide more time for a spouse to carefully hide assets.

Aside from how a spouse may spend or deal with finances, a lot can happen in life that could affect a future settlement. For instance, the law itself is a consideration. Not only can laws change, but a spouse could move to a jurisdiction in which the settlement outcome may be drastically different due to varying laws.

What if one spouse decides to enter into a new relationship? It may not have been in his or her future plans; but it happens. Not only would a spouse have to obtain a divorce prior to remarrying, but being in a relationship during divorce could have an effect on the outcome.

What if a spouse loses his or her job? What if you inherit a large sum of money? What if a lawsuit arises against the other spouse? What if they run into criminal trouble and are forced to pay restitution?

The point is that life is unpredictable, but those that want to have control over their financial future should discuss their intentions with an experienced divorce attorney in Utah.

Free Consultation with a Holiday Parent-Time Lawyer

If you have a question about child custody question or if you need to collect back child support, please call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506. We will help you.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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from Michael Anderson http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/holiday-parent-time/

from Top Rated Utah Lawyer https://topratedlawyer.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/holiday-parent-time/

[wesonerdy]

A Stardance Summer by Emily March is out now! If you’re looking for a swoony summer read, start here with the newest in the Eternity Springs series!

  Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

  Synopsis

Return to the beloved small town of Eternity Springs in the newest installment of Emily March’s New York Times bestselling series with A Stardance Summer.

Sometimes the end of one road

Brick Callahan enjoys every minute of chaos at his campground, Stardance Ranch, especially after the Tornado Alleycats arrive for an extended summer stay. The members of the all-female glamorous camping club are primarily seniors—active and adventurous, friendly and fun. But when he discovers Liliana Howe frolicking with the glamping grannies in a late night skinny-dipping session, he fears he’s in for a summer of trouble. Because his best friend’s kid sister has grown up to be drop-dead gorgeous…is the start of another.

Betrayed by those she trusted, Lili decides she’s put her career first for too long. She sells her practical sedan, buys a travel trailer, and heads to Eternity Springs for a summer of rest, relaxation, and reassessment as the newest member of the Alleycats. The last person she expects to find running an RV resort is her high school crush. Their undeniable mutual attraction is a reminder that life is full of surprises. But when the past comes calling, will their summer romance stand the test of time?

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | IndieBound | Powells Add to your Goodreads TBR!

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

  Excerpt

Chapter One

Twenty years later

I won’t cry. I absolutely, positively will not cry.

Liliana Howe silently repeated the mantra as she rang the doorbell of her parents’ home in Norman, Oklahoma. She still had a key to the house, but her arms were full with two large white paper bags of her father’s favorite Tex-Mex from the taqueria over by Oklahoma University.

Brian and Stephanie Howe met at home for lunch every day, but it was rare for Lili to join them. She usually worked through lunch. But then, today was not a usual day, was it?

Her father answered the door. His gray eyes rounded in surprise. “Lili? Did we forget a lunch date?”

“No, Dad. I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d surprise you with lunch from Miguelito’s.”

“Well, that’s nice.” He opened the screen door. “Come on in. Let me help you with those bags.”

He led her through the house back toward the kitchen. “That smells wonderful. This is a real treat, Liliana. Your mother doesn’t let me have Mexican too often.”

“It’s been too long since I’ve seen you guys.”

They walked into the kitchen to find her mother seated at the table staring intently at her computer. Typical Stephanie Howe. Always working. Without looking up, she said, “Stevenson has the best rating, but—”

“Look who’s here, honey,” Lili’s father interrupted.

Stephanie Howe finally glanced up, her thoughts obviously somewhere else, because she gazed at Lili as if she didn’t recognize her. Lili waved her fingers. “Surprise.”

“Oh.” Stephanie gave her head a little shake. “Lili. Hello. Did we forget a lunch date?”

Inwardly, Lili sighed. “No. I was in the mood for Mexican and I thought of Dad.”

“It’s not good for his cholesterol.”

“No, but once in a blue moon won’t hurt him. Dr. Derek told me that himself.”

She unloaded the bags, setting tacos, cheese enchiladas, refried beans, guacamole, and tortilla chips in the center of the table. Her mother brought plates and silverware from the cabinet. “Nevertheless, it’s nice to see you. It’s been too long. How are you, Lili? Have you recovered from tax season?”

“It’s definitely behind me,” she replied with a wry twist of her lips.

They all filled their plates. Not anxious to spill her own beans, Lili took an extra spoonful of refried and asked, “So, what do you hear from Derek?”

Her parents spent quite a bit of time talking about their renowned heart surgeon son. Nerves caused Lili to make a pig of herself on chips and guacamole, and she didn’t miss her mother’s judgmental frown.

Finally, after extolling Derek’s most recent peer recognition award, her father asked Lili what was new with her work and the moment was at hand.

She sipped her water, wished it were a beer, and summarized the sequence of events that had led her to this crisis point. Then she waited for them to react.

And she waited.

And waited.

Her parents shared one of those long, hard-to-read looks that made Lili’s stomach do a bit of a sick flip. Her father cleared his throat. “It’s an incredible tale.”

Her mother nodded. “Unbelievable.”

Lili sucked salt off her bottom lip. She hadn’t expected them to jump to their feet and vow to make the villains pay, but she’d thought they’d be angry on her behalf. Not . . . reserved.

Deep within her, despair kindled to life. They were her parents. She was counting on them. Nevertheless, she pressed ahead, calmly and logically laying out the approach she wanted to take and the assistance she needed from her mother and father.

Again, her parents shared one of those inscrutable looks. Lili’s heart began to pound. “I don’t know, Liliana,” her father said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It would be hard to fight them. They’re powerful people. I hate to say it because it’s not the way this country was supposed to work, but if a Normal Joe tries to go up against powerful people, most often he loses.

“I don’t want to see you get involved with making a charge against the police. That could turn nasty real fast. This cop . . . you said you think your bosses might have threatened him, too? He might be in an even tougher position than you.”

“But he lied, Dad! He falsified records.”

“But you have no proof of that, do you?”

“Just my word.” Isn’t that enough, Dad? At least for you?

“Maybe you should let things lie for a while. Give it some time. See how things work out. I think it’s simply too soon to call the governor and ask for a personal favor.”

That, Lili knew, was a no. A no and a verbal punch to the gut. After her father’s heroic efforts during Central Oklahoma’s most recent tornado outbreak, hadn’t the governor given Brian Howe her direct phone number and instructions to call if he ever needed help with anything? Lili could think of only one reason why he denied her request, and it made her want to toss her guaco.

“Maybe later on when everything settles down we can look at the situation again.”

He didn’t believe her. He didn’t believe in her. Neither did her mother. Lili’s heart twisted. She knew her parents. They wouldn’t come right out and say it, but she saw the significant looks they’d exchanged. Noticed the way they wouldn’t meet her eyes.

They believed she’d been driving drunk last night and the DUI was legit. They did not believe that she’d been set up.

They thought she’d lied.

Lied!

Hurt like nothing she’d ever known washed through her. Lili had never been a liar. Even as a child she’d been frightfully honest. Hadn’t that been her way of attempting to gain favor with her parents? Her brilliant older brother spun stories that had fooled her equally brilliant parents, but eagle-eyed little sister often knew the truth. And tattled. But always with the truth.

Always.

Yet now, they doubted her? They believed her so irresponsible that she would climb behind the wheel of a car after she’d been drinking, thus risking her life, the lives of others, and her license to practice her profession?

Good grief, did they think she’d embezzled money from senior citizens, too?

Lili swallowed hard. Inside, her heart was bleeding. I will not cry. I will not cry. She couldn’t believe this. What was she going to do now?

The only thing she was certain of was that she needed to leave. Immediately. Before she lost her enchiladas all over her mother’s Italian tile.

But Lili couldn’t make herself stand up. Her knees were too weak.

“I think your father is right.” Stephanie Howe reached over and patted Lili’s hand. “You know, dear, maybe this is for the best. You haven’t been happy in your work for some time now.”

“You never liked accounting,” her father added helpfully. “Perhaps it’s best that you look on this event as an opportunity.”

An opportunity? For what? Prison? Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her, but Lili swallowed it down.

Lili’s mother rose from the table and removed a glass pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator. She topped off her husband’s glass and changed the subject.

Lili didn’t really care about the plans for their next-door neighbor’s upcoming retirement party. Nor did she give a fig about OU football recruiting rumors. She spent the rest of the meal in a distracted fog.

Finally, having cleaned his plate—twice—Brian Howe set down his fork, wiped his mouth with a napkin, then checked his watch. “I’ve gotta run. I have a one o’clock conference call.”

Standing, he leaned over and pressed a kiss against Lili’s hair. “It was nice to see you, sweetheart. Don’t be such a stranger.”

Minutes later, he walked out the door and Stephanie was preparing to follow. “I hate to rush you, Lili, but I have office hours before my two o’clock lecture.”

Stephanie Howe taught advanced mathematics at OU. “That’s okay, Mom. Why don’t you go on? I’ll stay and load the dishwasher.”

“Thank you. You’ll lock up when you’re done?”

“I will.”

Her mother ducked into the master bedroom and returned a few moments later with her hair and teeth brushed and wearing new lipstick. On the way out the door, she paused. “Lili, things happen for a reason, and often, we don’t know what that reason is. Sometimes you simply need to give it a little time.”

She gave a little finger wave, then exited the house. Lili stood in the center of her parents’ kitchen, her arms hanging limply at her sides. She heard her mother’s car start, then back out of the driveway. Lili was alone. Alone and . . . lost.

Her parents didn’t believe her. Why not? What had she ever done to earn this lack of faith?

Nothing. She might not have been the smartest Howe sibling, but she’d made it a point to be the one who never screwed up. Derek the Favorite couldn’t say that. The time her brother had come within a phone call of getting an MIP, he’d deserved one. He and his trouble-magnet best friend had celebrated the no-hitter Mark had thrown in the regionals of the state baseball tournament by buying a fifth of bourbon with fake IDs and drinking themselves silly in a public park. Neither had gone near a car, but still.

Derek’s good luck was that their father’s administrative assistant’s husband was the chief of police. Dad had called the chief on Derek’s behalf and worked out a deal. Derek would pay the required fine and do the required community service, but it wouldn’t go on his record. Gotta protect the college applications, you know.

He’d called for Derek.

He won’t go near the phone for me.

Pressure filled Lili’s chest. It reminded her of that achy feeling she got when reading a novel where the protagonist discovers that her loved one has betrayed her. At that point in a book, Lili invariably skipped ahead to read the ending. Lili needed happy endings.

Satisfying endings didn’t work for her. She wanted happy-ever-after.

Once she knew the book was a safe read, the emotional grief she experienced eased. Then she invariably read the rest of the book backward. She was weird that way.

She’d never expected to be the wronged character in a real-life novel. Not with her parents cast as the betrayers, anyway. She wished she could skip to the end of this story. Maybe then she’d discover that her parents had believed her and believed in her all along and they had a really good reason for doing what they’d just done.

Yeah. Right. And I’ll win the next season of Who’s Got Talent because of my spreadsheet expertise.

Ordinarily, pity parties were not Liliana’s style. Today as she picked up her father’s plate from the table, she had a star-studded gala going on.

Mom and Dad didn’t believe her.

She took two steps toward the sink, then abruptly stopped. She dropped the plate.

Actually, she threw the plate. With both hands. Hard.

It smashed against the floor, shattering into dozens of pieces. Next she threw his glass and her mother’s plate and her own plate and glass. And Liliana realized she was panting as if she’d run five miles. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she blinked them away.

Then, because she was Liliana, she got a broom and dustpan and cleaned up her mess. About the time her mother would be pulling into the faculty parking lot at OU, Lili exited the house and locked the door behind her. Then she removed her parents’ house key from her key ring and dropped it through the mail slot in their front door.

As she walked down the sidewalk toward the slate-gray sedan she’d parked at the curb, the soon-to-be-retired neighbor drove into his driveway. They exchanged waves and Lili extended a trembling hand toward her car door.

“I absolutely, positively won’t cry.”

Maintaining her composure, she slid into the driver’s seat and calmly buckled the safety belt. She started her engine, shifted into drive, and slowly pulled away from her childhood home. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t curse. She wouldn’t break any more dishes or squeal her tires in a fit of temper.

Lili wasn’t reckless. She didn’t act rashly and seldom lost control of her temper or emotions. She was logical and deliberate and controlled.

And honest. Totally honest.

Just the way a good accountant should be.

The faintest of sobs escaped her at the thought.

She’d broken her mother’s Fiesta. And yes, she had goosed the gas on her practical sedan, though not enough to squeal the tires. She wasn’t certain that her engine even had enough power to do it.

Her landlady’s voice echoed through her mind. I think this car’s get-up-and-go got up and went before it ever left the showroom floor.

“I bought it used,” Lili had defended.

Patsy Schaffer clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Oh, honey. Of course you did.”

Buying this car had been a good decision, Lili told herself now. A practical purchase. Cars lost value the moment they were driven off the lot. The last thing she needed was a big car payment.

Especially since as of today, she didn’t have a job.

She sucked in a shuddering breath. What am I going to do?

“Fight.” That’s what she needed to do. That’s what she’d come to her parents’ house to do. To gather her resources. To prepare for war. This injustice could not be allowed to stand!

So fine. She’d go into battle by herself. Work from the bottom up instead of the top down. She could do it. She was a grown-up. She didn’t need her parents to fight her battles. She was accustomed to doing things alone, wasn’t she?

She’d go back to the office. Today. Now. What could it hurt? They couldn’t fire her again. She’d demand to speak to Fred Ormsby, the other founding partner. She’d outline her case and demand that the situation be investigated by an independent party. Then she’d go to the police and do the same thing with them.

She could do this. She was strong.

She was scared.

By the time she pulled onto I-35 headed north to her office building in downtown Oklahoma City, she’d lost the battle to hold back tears. Soon she’d soaked four tissues and was on to drowning her fifth.

Then, just as she signaled her intention to take the upcoming exit, a motorcycle screamed by, passing on the right. Only by the grace of God did she avoid hitting him.

In that instant, the blaze of Lili’s temper evaporated her fears. If she’d had another dinner plate, she’d have thrown it at the fool. She was furious that the rider had endangered himself by riding recklessly without a helmet. She was incensed at her former friend and mentor in the firm and at his criminal connections in the police department who were able to create false DUI charges out of nothing.

And her parents . . . Lili swallowed hard. Her parents. For them, she had no words.

Downtown, she found a parking spot two blocks from her building, so she took it. She grabbed a fresh tissue, flipped down the visor mirror, and wiped away mascara tracks. She blew her nose, put on fresh lipstick, and pinched some color into her wan cheeks.

Drawing two calming, bracing breaths, she stepped outside and prepared to go to war.

Lili marched up the street. You can do this. You can do this. Right is on your side. Justice will prevail.

She was halfway to her building’s front door when the problem occurred to her. They’d taken away her credentials. She wouldn’t be allowed upstairs.

They’d taken her credentials. They’d taken her reputation. They’d taken her license. A great yawning sense of despair opened up inside her. I’m powerless.

The door to her building opened and her former mentor and the firm’s other founding partner stepped outside. Okay. Okay. Her luck was turning. Here was an opportunity. Approaching them on a public street wouldn’t be her first choice, but the fact that they’d come out of the building right at this particular moment was a sign, was it not?

She took one more step forward, then stopped abruptly. A third person had joined them. A third person smiled and laughed and flirted up at the two men old enough to be her father.

Tiffany Lambeau.

Lili’s nemesis.

When Tiffany had followed Mark Christopher to the University of Hawaii, Lili had hoped Norman, Oklahoma, had seen the last of her. Instead, Tiffany had come home with an MBA and a “broken” heart quickly healed by a prominent banker. Now Tiffany was on the prowl again, and she’d started working at the firm late last year as a consultant. She knew everyone of consequence in town— maybe the entire state—and she’d quickly weaseled her way into visiting the corner offices. Often.

Lili watched the trio turn the other direction and stroll up the sidewalk, arm in arm, and she had no doubt that she was looking at Ormsby, Harbaugh, and Stole’s newest partner.

The guacamole in Lili’s stomach made a threatening rumble. “Oh yes,” she murmured. “Talk about a sign.”

She could possibly face the powers that be at the firm. She might even be able to hold her own while presenting her case to the cops. But Tiffany Lambeau? Forget about it.

Some parts of high school a girl simply couldn’t leave behind.

Lili pivoted and returned to her car. She thumbed the lock, opened the door, slid inside, and calmly fastened her seat belt. She sat with her hands on the wheel for a full five minutes, the events of the day running through her mind like a bad movie. How many times today had she asked herself, What am I going to do?

Now, finally, at—she glanced at the clock on her dash— 2:27 p.m., she knew the answer. “That’s it. I’m done. I quit.”

Lili switched on her ignition, shifted her car into drive, and spoke her life-changing decision aloud. “I’m going to join the Tornado Alleycats.”

Copyright © 2017 by Emily March and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Press.

  Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press

  About the Author

Emily March is the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty novels, including the critically acclaimed Eternity Springs series. Publishers Weekly calls March a “master of delightful banter,” and her heartwarming, emotionally charged stories have been named to Best of the Year lists by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Romance Writers of America. A graduate of Texas A&M University, Emily is an avid fan of Aggie sports and her recipe for jalapeño relish has made her a tailgating legend.

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    SPOTLIGHT: ‘A Stardance Summer’ by Emily March A Stardance Summer by Emily March is out now! If you're looking for a swoony summer read, start here with the newest in the…

[awesomesauceduo]

Life is often its own adventure, with ups, downs, and a lot of things you don’t expect.

Life for the Duo has been a roller-coaster adventure over these past few months, but we think we are headed to a slightly more awesome ride – with less whiplash and more “aw man this is rad!”

We just saw the Anniversary of our Launch Day, of the day we found out our home was stolen, and of the day it was found – ransacked and in shambles. These past few weeks have been emotional and sad, remembering all of our great promise, and feeling our devastation all over again. Losing everything is not as much fun as it sounds, and it is really hard to describe to people. It would be easier to tell them that our home burned to the ground, at least then they might understand the total and complete destruction that losing the RV was for us. Most of the time we get a lot of, “Oh bummer, sorry your RV got stolen. At least you could just go home,” or, “Oh, did you have anything important in it?” The other thing we hear a lot is, “Well, at least it was covered by insurance, right? Just get it repaired and head back out!” If only any of these statements were true, and it were that easy! We would have hit the road ages ago! Sadly, however, it is a little (a lot) more complicated than that.

Insurance barely covered repairs, and even then they didn’t cover all the repairs. That, coupled with the fact that repairs took SIX MONTHS, took a big chunk (all) of our emergency money, travel money, living money, and some of everyone we knows money. Not to mention that the place were the RV was being repaired LOST our TRAILER. Just….POOF, up in a puff of smoke. There was also the pesky fact that someone STOLE OUR HOME AND ALL OF OUR THINGS. That is something even we have a hard time grappling with, still. We go to watch a movie, or read a book that was in the RV, or look for a cooking utensil, or a shirt we remembered having…and have to remind ourselves that if it was in the RV (and it was), that is it gone. A year later and it still kicks us in the teeth. Clothes? Gone? Bedding? Nope. Pots and Pans? Outta here. Starting from total scratch is scary, and very expensive.

We had to buy all new furniture, bed, bedding, clothes, stuff for cats, suits for Awesome K to job hunt in, TV, an entire kitchen of stuff, ALL. THE. THINGS. Sometimes, when people look at us blankly, I want to tell them to look around their house, then imagine that ALL of it is gone, and they have to start over. Not only did we do just that, we did it in a completely alien location! We were both from Denver, and we landed in Sacramento, thanks to some AMAZING friends of ours who let us stay with them until we could get on our feet a little bit.

We did just that. Awesome K got a job in Sacramento dealing poker, and Saucy G started working on her biggest project – a fictional novel! While we waited for the RV to get repaired, we explored Northern California as much as we could, with the (tiny) budget we had. We went to the Winchester Mystery House, which, by the way, is the greatest house ever! We took one of our Mews, Matilda Pants, to the beach where The Birds was filmed (luckily we didn’t see anything too scary). We even added a member to our Mews Staff! Saucy G spent her birthday in San Francisco, which is one of the greatest cities in the world (just make sure you go hungry)!

However, we quickly learned that Sacramento was not the town for us, and we started looking for better opportunities. Sacramento was also where we said our final goodbyes to the RV.

Unfortunately, due to lack of finances, the inability to get finances for travel, and the Universe giving a CLEAR message that this was not the path for us, we were forced to sell the RV. We sold her to a wonderful charity that gave the RV to a single Mom in need of a safe place to call home for her and her child. We sold the RV for 1/3 of what it was worth, which was a huge bummer, but it went to a great cause and a wonderful woman. If you see the RV (last time we saw her, she still had our crest on the back) give her a wave for us, but please do not disturb her new charges.

Even though she went to a good home, it was like losing her, and our dreams of traveling, all over again. It was the final goodbye to the life we had planned on for so long. There were a lot of tears, and some swear words, but we knew it was for the best.

After saying our goodbyes, we moved from Sacramento…which brings us to our NEW New AwesomeSauce HQ! The duo has landed in GORGEOUS Oceanside, California! Our first moments driving into our new city brought us flowers, a view of the ocean, and a renewed sense of adventure!

Oceanside Pier

Awesome K has a job with one of the local casinos (in Funner, California. Yes, Funner is a real place!), doing what he does best. Saucy G is still working on her first novel, and the Mews have settled in nicely. There are a lot more breezes, trees and flowers in Oceanside, and 100% fewer fleas, which is a big plus for them. The weather here is always amazing, and we are just mere moments (about 20 of them) from the beach! We can literally go to the beach whenever we want! Saucy G grew up in a “landlocked” state, and had only been to the beach a handful of times, and only on rare special occasions, so being this close is mind-boggling!

Miss Matilda Pants feeling sassy

Mister Archer Funnyfoot feeling sassy

Lady Lana BoBana, and Cass (Fluffer) enjoying a wonderful ocean breeze

We have even saved some pennies and gone on a few (small) adventures, and hope to go on more soon. Cost of living is pretty high in Oceanside, apparently EVERYONE wants to live in perfect weather near the ocean, so our adventures are a wee limited – for now. That doesn’t stop us from trying, though.

Our most recent adventure took us back to Las Vegas! Now, you may be asking, “Why on EARTH would you go there? After all that happened?” Because we love Las Vegas. We were married in Las Vegas, and we weren’t going to let one mean nasty person ruin the city that we love. So we went to “take it back” for ourselves. We went to the Flamingo and saw our brick (You can see our brick, too! We are the AwesomeSauce Duo, with our wedding date of 10/31/15 on it), we checked out the World Series of Poker (although we didn’t play in any events this year), and we relaxed by the pool. We might have avoided Bally’s, but other than that we had a wonderful time in the city we love.

After Vegas we haven’t really been up to much. We go to the beach, we check out the sights, and we plot and plan our next adventures.

Through a lot of luck, and careful planning, we were able to get tickets to the San Diego ComicCon this year! You can check us out on Thursday and Sunday of the Con. We are also going back to Midsummer Scream for the whole weekend, which will be amazing. They say the Elvira, Mistress of the Dark will be there this year!! Saucy G is a HUGE fan, and is super excited for the chance to see her in person. Also, if we are lucky, and can get our hands on some tickets, we are hoping to go to this years CatCon in Pasadena!

So, that brings you up to speed on where we are at. It has been a helluva year, but we are still Awesome! No RV? NO PROBLEM! We may not have an RV, but that doesn’t mean our adventures have stopped!

Thank you for sticking with us through this crazy year. Now it’s time to put the past behind us, and focus on an awesome future! We will be back soon with new adventures, new posts, and all things awesome!

(Want more frequents updates on the AwesomeSauce Duo and the Mews Team? Check out our Facebook Page!)

  NEW New HQ Life is often its own adventure, with ups, downs, and a lot of things you don't expect.

[sdconnection-blog]

By Michael Good | House Calls

Louise Mary Severin finally getting the respect she deserves

There’s little in Louise Mary Severin’s background that would suggest she’d someday become one of San Diego’s more prolific pre-war builders. Her father was a barber. Her mother was a homemaker. No one in her family had a background as a builder, architect or carpenter. And she married a car salesman — from a family of car salesmen.

Yet by 1926, she was buying lots, pulling permits and building houses throughout Kensington, Normal Heights, North Park and Mission Hills. She wasn’t just a builder, she was a designer as well, and the houses she created were distinctive, carefully constructed and highly livable — and much in demand, both during her lifetime and today. Her husband followed her into the building business, and his four brothers followed him. Louise’s mother even got in on the act, financing her early projects.

The beginning of a housing revolution: San Diego’s first FHA loan paid for this. (Photos by Michael Good)

All told, the Severin family built hundreds if not thousands of houses in San Diego. In 1951 alone, the Severin Company built 125 houses in Grossmont. Their output ranged from the hand-crafted hacienda-style bungalows built one-at-a-time in the 1920s in San Diego’s swankier streetcar suburbs to the mass-produced tract homes of the 1960s that line Southern California’s freeways.

Louise’s husband, Hilmer T. Severin, got the whole ball (or tire) rolling in 1919, when he and his brother Earl designed, built and marketed an automobile, the Severin Roadster. Louise was the secretary-treasurer of the company. By 1922, however, it had all gone bust. But if only the brothers had come up with a slightly better business plan (like one that didn’t involve defrauding their stockholders) it might be possible today to drive to Severin Manor in Grossmont by way of Severin Drive in La Mesa, in your Severin automobile. Instead, you’ll just have to settle for two out of three.

In 2003, historian Ron May was doing research for a Mills Act application for a property in Kensington. The house on Rochester Drive was a simple, little hacienda-style Spanish bungalow. To his surprise, the builder was a woman. The house had a few unique characteristics: a U-shaped plan with a front patio enclosed by a wall, deeply textured rustic stucco walls and a tapered chimney with a rectangular inset. It only took a quick drive around the neighborhood for May to see that there were others like it. Of the 19 similar-looking houses on Lymer, Rochester and Norfolk Terrace in Kensington Manor Unit 1, he found, by checking water permits filed when the houses were completed, nine were by Louise M. Severin.

May’s late wife (and research partner) Dale Ballou May was particularly intrigued. How could this rare female builder have been overlooked? Dale convinced Ron to pull out all the stops, and that led to locating a living relative of Louise Severin. William “Erik” DeCamp is the grandson of Louise’s sister Stella (his father was also a builder, and part of the family business; his mother was named Mary Louise, after Louise Mary). Despite the added information and photographs provided by Erik, Ron’s efforts to get Louise recognized as a master builder were “met with resistance” by the city.

Louise Mary Severin residence, circa 1929

“I vigorously defended her as a candidate for historical significance,” Ron said. The city staff remained unconvinced, he added, but the Historical Resource Board agreed unanimously, and Severin is now considered a master builder. “It underscored how difficult it was to get a woman recognized for her accomplishments,” Ron said.

After the failure of Severin Motor Co., Louise and Hilmer moved to San Diego and Louise apprenticed in the building trades. She learned carpentry, plastering, flooring, roofing, concrete and estimating. She passed the contractor’s exam, got her license and went to work.

Hilmer served in a role typically played by a woman, as helper, gofer and paper shuffler — the spouse who signed the water permit. Louise typically purchased several lots at a time and built with the entire neighborhood streetscape in mind, not just an individual home. She built in Kensington Manor, where Richard Requa was the supervising architect, and his general disdain for applied ornament, fussiness and phoniness is apparent in her work. She also worked with Roy Lichty, whose son-in-law Cliff May was instrumental in the development of the ranch house. But Ron May was unable to establish any link between either of these men and Louise Severin, although Cliff May’s widow, Jean, did remember her as a high-energy woman who always wore a big, floppy hat.

Early-20th-century women designers and builders were able to succeed in a male-dominated profession because they had large female support groups. They belonged to women’s clubs and associations and alumni groups. We don’t know how Louise Severin dealt with the challenges. Maybe she and Hilmer had a particularly tight bond. Maybe she was just tough.

William “Erik” DeCamp describes Louise and Hilmer as leading a sort of bohemian existence: living out of boxes, surviving on take-out food, moving from one recently completed house to the next whenever their present home got sold out from under them. For someone who built homes, and who gave a lot of thought to how women would live in them — it’s that comfort and grace that women homeowners often praise — Louise never quite had one herself, at least not for long. Over the years, she and Hilmer rarely stayed anywhere for more than a year. And she had a lot of temporary homes to choose from. A San Diego Union article on March 19, 1933 reported she had built 91 so far, “mostly in Talmadge Park, Kensington Manor and Marston Hills.”

In 1935, a house Louise built at 4720 Norma Drive became the first in San Diego to qualify for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) financing. FHA financing transformed the building industry. It made it possible for more people to buy houses, and gave builders confidence they could recoup their investment. The FHA also specified how they wanted houses built and favored developers that built many houses, not just a few.

Guy Lichty, developer of Talmadge Park, understood the FHA. He constructed Talmadge Park to its specifications, and he recruited Louise to build there. By the late 1930s, Talmadge Park was the hottest development in San Diego.

Louise and Hilmer moved to Los Angeles at the end of the decade. By 1940, they were living in a sort of professional equilibrium. They described their respective jobs with the exact same words in that year’s census: home builder and contractor. During the war years, Ron May said, they built FHA houses for “defense contractors and returning veterans.” They moved to Santa Monica. Louise built houses in Beverly Hills and Brentwood. In May 1949, one of those houses was listed for sale for $48,900, a huge sum in a day when tract houses sold for $5,000. (That colonial ranch is currently valued at $9 million.) The 1949 ad in the L.A. Times calls it a “Louise Mary Severin design.” You’ve reached a sort of immortality when real estate agents use your name as a selling point.

A few months later, on Sept. 22,1949, Louise was supervising a tree trimmer as he was clearing a lot she was about to build on. The branch he was cutting fell on her, striking her head. She died that day in the hospital. She was 58. A local newspaper account, in which the tree-trimmer tries to deflect blame, was picked up by the wire services, rewritten and published around the country. From the St. Louis Star and Times:

“Woman Spurns Advice; Falling Limb Kills Her.” Los Angeles, Sept. 23. — (UP) — Mrs. Hilmer Severin 58, stopped under a tree and watched John Neri sawing a limb high above her. He warned her, “That’s not a very good place to stand, lady.” She walked away, then came back and stood directly under the limb just as it fell. She was hit on the head and died soon after yesterday at Santa Monica Hospital.

Louise Mary Severin didn’t get much respect in death (or a decent obituary). And she didn’t get remembered very well by posterity, either, until a couple of historians came along and pressed the issue. But she did get respect in life — after all, she got to build some marvelous houses, and a great number of them still stand, and are still providing comfort, utility and beauty to those who dwell in them. That’s more than most builders can say today — no matter their gender.

—Contact Michael Good at housecallssdun@gmail.com.

The post The lady contractor appeared first on San Diego Uptown News.

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Original Article Provided By: SDUptownNews.com The lady contractor By Michael Good | House Calls Louise Mary Severin finally getting the respect she deserves There’s little in Louise Mary Severin’s background that would suggest she’d someday become one of San Diego’s more prolific pre-war builders.