#i mean my loyalty to the avs is forever

[georgievs]

georgie cult how we feeling

[papermoonloveslucy]

INDOMINATABLE LIFESTYLE

July 16, 1972

HOLLYWOOD - Indomitable funny girl Lucille Ball, with a messy scoop hair the color of an orange popsicle, flashes on the scene in a sad predicament. 

She's got a lame leg.  

Lucy hobbled from her sleek silver Rolls Royce and into the yellow cubbyhole dressing room which is a sunny retreat near the Lucy set which Is crawling with rehearsal activity. 

On the surface, everything's ha-ha-ha. But the fact is that surgeons have inserted pins into the shattered leg bone suffered last year in a Snowmass Peak, Colo., skiing accident. The leg brace is a semi-intolerable ball and chain. But, as always, crippling situations must be mastered. Lucy's inextinguishable spirit pulsates despite the physical handicap. 

Lucy Is showing a smiling color photograph of herself in a flowing white hooded cape coat rimmed in fluffy fox. The picture, radiating exterior happiness, doesn't reflect the inner pain. Lucy's leg, in a hip cast, is disguised under a blanket. 

You know the familiar Lucy grin? She's grinning it and saying hell no, baby, she's not ever going to ski again. She couldn't stomach another goddam ordeal like that. Besides, on the immediate horizon is an operation to remove the pins.

Lucy, being Lucy, bears the cross with humor: "Honey," she says, "skiing is just getting into those nice winter clothes and being a show off." The burdensome subject of broken bones is dismissed with frivolity. 

Brainy Lucy, now 60 and president of a $30 million corporation, is an American institution. 

But, like all super-successful females, she vibrates complex contradictions. The fashion plate - who initiated her career as a Hattie Carnegie hat model - is a winsome dumb broad on the tube. In reality she's tough executive who barks orders left and right. Staffers instantly do like the lady says. God has spoken. Lucy runs a tight ship, but she is more respected than feared. 

Yet Lucy is softie with a heart of spun sugar. Trappings, which she has in predictable abundance, aren't a psychic crutch. 

"Success is knowing that if everything were wiped away tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter. I wouldn't die if I lost my things," she says. Then the awesome simplicity: "Dear, I still go home and let the cat out" 

Lucy has always run her home life with a liberal hand.

Desi Arnaz, Jr. is currently Involved in well-publicized liaison with Liza Minnelli. There was a previous Desi scandal regarding Patty Duke. People gossip a lot here because they live in a city where the major industry is make-believe and fact and fiction become blurred. 

Lucy isn't deaf to the talk about her son's romances: 

"What the hell, they're having a fine spree. I just hope it lasts for Desi and Liza. They don't have time to get married. Their scene is the world and they're swinging in there. I'm the one who talked marriage to them. One night I said: Look, kids, don't get married too soon. They were upset. Desi countered with the observation that you don't have to settle down when you get married. So I go -  well, that's true son! The subject of marriage just never came up again. They're a nice couple. They present themselves well without becoming asses. I've told the kids to do as they wish." 

Lucy, who was a good friend to Judy Garland, makes no bones about her affection for Liza. And once Lucy loves, the feeling lasts. After 20 years of marriage to Desi Arnaz, there was the divorce. Still Lucy looks people straight in the eyes and says the present Mrs. Desi Arnaz is a "wonderful woman." And she can see it in her heart to rent ex-husband Desi studio space on her lot so that he can work in the shadow of a success they initiated together. 

When Liza Minnelli was a child, Lucy kept a scrapbook of Liza's activities at play, in ballet school, attending birthday parties. There, in a battered old photo album, are the precious pictures. Liza didn't know about the book until recently. Desi brought Liza home and Lucy accidentally-on-purpose left the book on a coffee table. "Oh! Wow!" exclaimed Liza through a flow of uncontrollable tears. 

Lucy; "And I said to Liza, honey-baby, I told you I've known you for a long time. Didn't you believe me?" Lucille Ball speaks in an affectionate aside about Liza and the loyalty is simultaneously visible and audible: 

"That kid is liable to explode any minute. I just hope I'm around to pick up the pieces. No one knows why she works so hard. She's made it her objective to clear her mother financially. Those b--- lawyers took her --- really took her. But she's paying back every damn cent herself." 

Life is, of course, an inexplicable mixture of tears and laughter. Buoyant Lucy can see the funnies in everything. Love, she says, is looking beyond someone's minor faults and caring passionately despite the irritations. Lucy's 80-year-old mom, Dede (Desiree Ball) lives near Lucy's sprawling colonial house in Beverly Hills. Dede has a longstanding idiosyncrasy which used to drive Lucy wild but is now an amusement. 

In that familiar screechy scratchy soprano voice oozing feigned stupidity, Lucy sing-songs the dialogue; 

"I say to Dede: Hey Dede, I've got a pain in my elbow. Dede always says: 'stupid, it's because you're not eating right!" Honest to God, if you've got a pain in your big toe, it's not because someone stepped on it it's the food. Drives you nuts! Dede really has a thing about food. The other day I went home and cooked a batch of chicken. 'Chicken!!" says Dede, 'you know it's gonna make me sick.' Of course Dede eats more chicken than anybody. Next day I say: Dede you been up all night throwin', huh? Naw," says Dede, the chicken wasn't half bad.'"

The ridiculous story illustrates two things Dede taught Lucy early in life. One: That without good health you've got nothing. Two; That without a non-pliant, thoroughly independent attitude, you've got less than nothing because show business kills the weak. 

Lucy is in constant awe of Dede. When Lucy built the five-story ski chalet 9,800 feet on the side of a Colorado mountain she was certain Dede couldn't take either the long trip or the altitude. Besides, once you get to Lucy's place, there are a million icy steps to climb before you make the front door. "Even the dogs stop to get their breath," says Lucy. "But when I start huffing, Dede looks over her shoulder and sorta snaps: Aw, Lucy, you're a sissy!' That woman is my challenge." 

Does Lucy ever get down? Do the burdens of crushing disappointments halt her enthusiasm even temporarily? "Jesus," she says, "I cry. I cry a lot. Then anger sets in. When I'm angry, I become a fighter. And I always fight to win." 

When Lucy talks to you, she taps your knee in a natural gesture of intimacy. Her gaze is through black fringed x-ray eyes that sear through trivia. She smokes her cigarette twirled ceremoniously between her thumb and forefinger. Lucy always spews gut honesty: 

"Love is a great peace of mind. There's no panic in the relationship. It's never having to prove yourself. Love is not playing games. Baby, some women have to put up with mysterious absenteeism. That's always a sign of hanky panky-ism. Christ, I never have to worry where Gary is." 

Gary is Gary Morton, Lucy's husband and executive producer. Suddenly he bursts into the dressing room and asks for the afternoon off. Lucy's going to work the full day. Her answer is affirmative, but she doesn't use the word "yes"; "Just don't forget to tell the cook to get out the steaks and have a big salad ready." 

The show is all in the family. Lucy's sister, Cleo Smith, is another producer. Lucy is having the talk-about twosome of Desi Jr. and Liza written into a script. Little Lucy, who has been Mrs. Phil Vandervort for a year, is a regular. She, too, bursts into the dressing room to use the john. The jeans are already embarrassingly unzipped. As she whizzes by she comments only to her famous mama: "Jeez, I though you were alone!" 

But an emergency is an emergency. Lucy, quick to seize the humor, quips: "Our togetherness is only occasionally splintered." 

In retrospect, Lucy is pleased with her real-life mother role. "I've been one hell of a mom," she says. "I always knew where they were every minute." Lucille Ball is a profound woman who often uses great simplicities to get her points across.

Once, when the kids were small, a nurse observed to Lucy that Little Lucy was calling Desi Jr., "fatso," and jabbing him in the stomach-when no one was looking. Desi didn't hit back because mama had said never to hit defenseless little girls. Lucy relives the old conversation with her daughter, first announcing each "part" and changing voices to portray the back-and-forth swing of conversation: 

Big Lucy: "Got a problem, Little Lucy?" 

Little Lucy: "Me? No." 

Big Lucy: "Let's talk. Whose fault is it? No, actually it doesn't matter whose fault it is. Next time one of you is hurt, I'm going to hit the one who is hurt." 

Little Lucy: "What does that mean, ma?" 

Big Lucy: "You'll see." 

Soon there was another battle. As usual, Little Lucy elbowed Desi in the stomach and he howled, Lucy illogically whacked Desi hard on the rear and his screams got louder. Little Lucy immediately became hysterical: "Mom, don't hit him! For God's sake, why are you hitting HIM?" 

Lucy delivered the punch line which is the credo of their life: "I hit Desi because you let things go too far. Never let things go too far. Someone innocent always suffers. Do you understand?" 

That was the end of sibling squabbling. Forever. 

Once, before her chorus girl days, New York-born Lucy worked as a fashion mannequin for various Seventh Ave. houses. She's still got a clotheshorse figure but she won't splurge on couture: "I'm just one of those normal working women who doesn't go in for hifalutin’ fashion." 

Lucy haunts three fabric shops in Beverly Hills and has local movie set seamstresses make all her clothes. "I'm not the type who dresses and goes out," says Lucy who long ago graduated from the silly-but-necessary movie star game of being seen in the right places. 

"Once when I was in Paris, I bought a designer dress grey flannel, I think and wore it out from the salon to my car.  When I sat down the damn thing was so strictly constructed that the neckline popped up to my nose. I was on my way to Switzerland and I mumbled to my driver, God, did that designer expect me to stand up on the plane?" Lucy can afford emergencies. When she got to Orly, she bought a dress from an airport boutique and changed in the ladies room. 

And, so, the sweet saga of Lucy continues, there are no plans to quit. The word - retirement - isn't in her vocabulary. "I can't imagine doing nothing," she says. "If you don't keep moving, you're buried." 

The beauty is still there. The complexion is like alabaster. Lucy confesses that she washes her face with Ivory soap, colors her own hair and occasionally gives herself offbeat facials." 

"Honey, the idiot who said to put honey on your face never explained that it has to be mixed with cream," she says. The face melts into that wonderful famous grin. "I put honey on straight from the goddamn jar and it closed my pores for a month." 

That's lovable Lucy. 

[Ed. Note: The original photographs were degraded by copying so similar shots were substituted as close to the originals as possible.]

#   #   #

[ask-de-writer]

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 62 of 83 : World of Sea

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 62 of 83

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

copyright 2020

written 2007

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users   of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may   reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information   remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in   my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical   compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  PART 1 is here

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Mord knocked on the cabin door.  The guard opened it at once.

The degree to which he was still trusted by the crew was shown by their choice of guard.  It was Bron, the cabin-boy.

“Yes, Sir?”

“Bron, would you please ask Alor, Acting Captain Kotance, a representative of the Master’s Council and  Cron to come here?”

Bron was aware that such a group meant something important.  He went at once to Alor’s cabin just down the passage.  He spoke with her through the door, staying in the hallway so that he could watch the Captain’s cabin door.  Mord only waited, as expected.

Alor went to get the witnesses that Mord had asked for, and Bron came back to his guard post by the door.  The group assembled quickly, coming one at a time to the Captain’s cabin.

Last to arrive was Alor, who came in the company of Master Juris.

The others waited in nervous silence until Alor began the meeting.  As Purser, she was the ship’s legal officer for most things and all official documents except the log were her province.  

She began, “Mord, we have assembled as you have requested.  What do you contemplate doing that needs witness from all sections of the crew?”

Mord drew a deep breath and knit his brows before replying,  “I have to do the hardest duty of my life.  I have looked at all of the charges in the documents that you have provided me and reflected on how best to deal with them.  They are all true.  I cannot in conscious good faith waste the time of the Longin or the Council trying to fight this.”

Concerned, Master Juris asked, “Will you mount no defense?  These are serious charges.  You could lose much, perhaps even your life.”

“I can only say in my defense that I plead mitigating circumstance.  I believe that I went onto dry land when Kurin was so viciously poisoned.  I have regarded her as a daughter and responded to her poisoning with a parent’s rage instead of a Captain’s thought and consideration.”

Kotance thoughtfully ran a hand through his red hair before speaking, “As Acting Captain, I must inquire into your state of mind.  You say that you ran hard aground.  What do you think has put you safely afloat now?  In short, are you refusing to fight as a way to get yourself punished for the killings?  Do you have safe water under your keel?”

“I believe that I do, Captain.  I do not want to be punished but I must take the responsibility for what I have done.  I did not even realize that I had done anything seriously wrong until after I saw the charges in writing and had the time to reflect on them.  I believe that I am now past that lapse of sanity.  I will accept the decision of the Council.  Until then, I will serve the Longin in whatever capacity I am allowed.”

Chapter 23: Questions

Kurin braced herself.  She had interviewed many of the Grandalor’s company.  What she had found had bothered her a great deal because it showed a dark side to the fleet that she loved.  Many of the crew had done bad things and had deserved their punishments.  Nearly as many more had been the victims of crimes by high officers on their ships or were inconvenient to keep for one or another reason.  They had been disposed of.

The Oath of Adoption, where they repudiated their old ship names and took Grandalor in their places was a thing that had been planned without Barad or Tanlin’s knowledge.  Originally, only about half the ship’s crew had planned to participate.

When it became obvious that the Captain who had helped them in their need was himself in trouble, they had pulled together behind him unanimously.  He had not let them down and they would stand with him. The Oath had been a way to show both him and the Council how they felt.  Their loyalty was ferocious.

A lifetime of habit made the very idea of accepting what Barad might tell her as questionable at best.  Tanlin had put it succinctly.  “Oi understand t’at i’ Barad told ye t’at t’e sky wa’ blue t’at ye wad probably look up t’ check.  Twad be best t’ interview ‘im last o’ t’e crew but before Morgu an’ Silor.  T’en ye’ll ‘ave somet’in’ t’ use for judgin’ w’at ‘e tells ye.”

Kurin had taken that advice.  She drew a deep breath and knocked on the Captain’s cabin door.  Tanlin opened it at once.  Barad was seated at a small table in the middle of the cabin.

“Do ye wont m’ t’ stay or go?” asked the Captain.

“I would appreciate it if you stayed but all of my other interviews have been solo.  I had better do this alone,” Kurin answered.

“T’at’s good,” said Tanlin, stepping through the door.  “T’is way shows nae favoritism.”

As the door slid shut behind her Barad smiled wanly and waved her an invitation to sit across from him.  “I won’t bite.  It cost us dear to get you here to help us.  I can’t see how you can save me. I am grateful that you will try to get my wife and crew off.”

Kurin replied thoughtfully, “I may not ever like you, Barad, but you deserve the best justice that can be.  I have learned things that I wish that I had never heard or read.  I can check almost everything from the fleet archives when we Gather for the trial.  I am sure that what I have learned will be backed up.”

The usually self-assured Kurin looked at Barad in dismay and said, “It has me confused.  I love my fleet.  They have done some terrible things.  My own ship is involved.  Are they good people or bad?  What about you?”  The dismay was real enough but the questions were calculated to obtain a candid reaction from Barad.

Barad’s reply shook her to the keel.  He considered thoughtfully before answering.  “They’re people, Kurin, with both good and bad.  Some few in influential places have abused their positions but most try to steer an honest course.

“Me?” he shrugged.  “I’ve been worse than most but not as bad as painted by some.  I’ve tried to pick up their mistakes and keep the innocent or merely foolish from swimming to your foster father.”

“You mean like Lenai or Darkistry?”

“Good examples.  One of each.  Darkistry was raped and framed.  Lenai simply got pregnant before she could get legally married.  The birth slot that she would have to have taken belonged to a friend who was married and had waited three Gatherings for the Lottery to give her a chance at a child.

Lenai had a good heart.  At the small Fall gathering, she went to look for a ship that would take her.  While she was looking, her ‘friends’ put her goods on the raft, after pilfering the best of them, and left a note barring her from returning to the Darok.  I took her and never regretted it.  She was the best sail-lofter and rigging surveyor in the fleet so far as I am concerned.

“Little Arnat alone would have been worth taking her in.  My wife was long dead, so I gave her my birth slot.”  He smiled softly.

Kurin could not help asking, “Why did you take in Silor the way that you did?”

“For five Gatherings, he was my eyes and ears aboard the Longin, though he would never tell Ship’s Business until the fiasco this last Gathering.  When his delusions about you led him to be cast off your ship, I could not help him openly because he was to be a key person in the plot to poison you.

“We picked him up in secret.  After he had done his part, I would have given him some education in Arrakan writing and figuring and sold him as an indenture to their fleet, where he would have probably become a good officer in time.”

The blunt revelation left Kurin feeling ill, needing to hide.  She pulled herself together and asked, “Who all knew of the plan to kill me?”

“At first, only myself, Mister Morgu, and one other that Mister Morgu picked.  I later learned that he was Merk, Master Selked’s apprentice, who was needed to make the poisoned kit.”

“What do you mean, ‘at first’?”

“I was troubled by something about the plot but couldn’t put a finger on it.  It nagged at me.  I know that doesn’t sound like much but very little that I’ve ever done bothers me.  I pay attention when something does.

“Shortly after picking up Silor, I took both Tanlin and Master Selked into my confidence.  They showed me the fatal errors in my reasoning.  

“Tanlin reminded me that by Arrakan custom and Law I would be forsworn if I went ahead.  You and Captain Mord were both at our wedding feast. That meant that our enmity was forever over, or I would lose her as wife.  Though it broke both of our hearts, she would have left me. How do I tell you that she is more important to me than even my ship?”

The question was rhetorical but Kurin interrupted to answer anyway.  She said quietly, “You don’t have to.  You stepped down as Captain to save her.  That’s proof enough for me.”

Barad gave her a surprised look.  I knew the she’d be intelligent.  I had not really expected wisdom.  

He went on,  “Master Selked pointed out that though I had always treated my old grudge as if it were the Longin that I hated, it was really only Mord that I had any complaint of, and that over twenty Gatherings gone.  In fact, the very thing that I held against him was the one time that I had completely bested him.  Hardly a reason for hate.

“One thing that I pride myself on is that I can change course immediately when I believe I am wrong.  We had that one Ord spine unaccounted, and it worried me because none of us knew where it was.  I logged and announced Standing General Orders that any use of Ord was mutiny.  I further ordered that if any part of the Ord were to be found still aboard, it should be destroyed.”

Kurin paused to consider what to ask next, thoroughly disturbed by all that she was hearing.  “That explains the timing of those orders.  I found them in the log and they’ve been mentioned in my other interviews.  

“You have also filled in the one hole in what Tanlin told me.  She tried to protect you.  She told me the truth but left you out of the plot to poison me.  Now that you have told me the rest of the truth, I like her even better and trust you more as well.

“Several people have mentioned Purser Morgu’s activities during the Gathering.  What can you tell me?”

TO BE CONTINUED

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[gracedman]

January 4 ~ New Year Same Old Blindness

John 5:18 (AMP)

18 This made the Jews more determined than ever to kill Him [to do away with Him]; because He not only was breaking (weakening, violating) the Sabbath, but He actually was speaking of God as being [in a special sense] His own Father, making Himself equal [putting Himself on a level] with God.

  John 5:18 (AV)

18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

  John 5:38–40 (ESV)

38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

 Many years ago when I was a college student, it was fashionable at our school to steal road signs from your home town and hang them in your dorm room. Some how having the sign was proof of your love and loyalty to your home town. The bigger the sign the better. Maybe you have seen these signs. They are green with white lettering and a white border strip. It was also some sort of a sign of masculinity and moxie to have such a sign. But to have a sign didn't prove you had a real relationship with that community. When pressed many of these owners would tell of a rash action and an impulsive episode that resulted in their possession of such a "treasure".  All the same, many of their fellow students were impressed. And that was the point. Impressing their peers.

 In John 5, Jesus was talking to such a group of men. Their actions were quite different but their motives were much the same. Listen to his words further along in this chapter:

  John 5:44 (ESV)

44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?  

 These people were completely committed to the bible, searched it out and obeyed it to the tiniest degree, yet did not recognize God in the flesh, when he stood and lived before them. They were too busy impressing each other with their exploits and achievements to comprehend someone from heaven itself. They cherished the response of their peers more than the praise from God. They lived in a religious subset totally isolated from God and his purposes on the earth. Just like my college pals, it didn't matter what higher authorities would have said or whether their activities were legal. It only mattered what the subset around them affirmed. I may step on some toes here but I do so without malicious intents. Please believe me. I love the Authorized Version of the bible. Commonly known as the King James Version, I cut my teeth on it. I grew up with it and have been blessed by it repeatedly. But it has some limitations that create some strange results, at least in my mind. We need to press in to the bible and beyond its surface meanings so that we fully grasp what was and is being said. Are we locked into a religious subset or have we been set free by the Son of God himself?

  John 8:31–36 (ESV)

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

 Perhaps we could talk of specifics, but how much better it is when Jesus himself brings us to new places himself. He alone takes away our spiritual blind spots and enables us to see.

 Lord Jesus, open our eyes and hearts to the vision only you can bring to our lives today. Amen!!!