#i woke up at 6am and had repair people in at 8

[cinewhore]

I don’t like to do the whole “hahaha I’m (this old) but I’m still a baby” thing cause yeah but i can’t help feeling like an idiot child when I’m given something I don’t understand and people are expecting me to be an expert

[czolgosz]

I am asking about the guy who stole the mona lisa !!

ok ^_^ hopefully everything is in order? i skipped around a bit bc i forgot some parts and had to go look them up later, so things were done kind of haphazardly... and jsyk i left a little bit of detail out bc i got tired of writing after a while lol...

vincenzo peruggia was born on october 8, 1881 in dumenza, italy. there, vincenzo learned decorative painting, and at 12 years old, he went to milan and worked as a housepainter.

at the age of 18 he went off to france, which was a popular place for young italians from vincenzo's region to move to, due to the region's poverty. he continued to work as a housepainter there.

also, this will be important later: his father was in debt and vincenzo wanted to help his family (consisting of his father, mother, younger sister, and three younger brothers) financially in any way that he could.

then when he was 20, he moved to paris.

in june 1908, he was drunk and waiting for a train to paris when he saw some children rolling terracotta pipes down the street. he yelled at the children, they ran away, and vincenzo picked up the pipes and dropped one. some people passing by thought he was stealing them bc he's italian and these french people are xenophobic. he was arrested for attempted theft.

around 12am on january 24, 1909, vincenzo exited a bar in the place de la republique. he was approached by a sex worker named abeille kauffman. he allegedly tried to attack her. he was arrested for carrying a weapon and not having his immigration papers, and he was in prison for eight days.

because of these two incidents, he hates the french.

anyway, in paris he continued to work as a housepainter until he fell ill from lead poisoning, which was a very common illness for painters to have. he had to stay at the lariboisière hospital for 15 days. the lead poisoning probably caused some brain damage.

after quitting his dangerous painting job, he worked for a glazing (as in doing stuff with glass) company called gobier.

(also, while working for gobier, his coworkers called him "dirty macaroni" and now he hates the french more.)

two paintings in the louvre were slashed within two months of each other. security at the louvre was considered comically bad. journalists stole art to show just how bad it was. to upgrade security, the louvre got a team of dogs and nightguards and decided to put 1600 of the paintings under glass cases. gobier was the louvre’s official glazier, usually repairing windows and skylights, so they were now the company responsible for this. vincenzo was one of five workers who cut and cleaned the glass for the cases. the work took place november 1909–january 1910 and november 1910–january 1911. while working there, he became familiar with the layout of the museum.

also while working there, vincenzo wondered why all this italian art was in a french museum. so he asked the louvre’s picture framer, pavard, why it was there, but pavard was just smugly like “haha how do you not know??” and wouldn’t tell him. one day, vincenzo found the answer: napoleon had stolen a bunch of italian art and sent it to paris. vincenzo was disgusted, and decided that he wanted to return at least one painting to italy...

once the glass casing job was finished, he left gobier and returned to housepainting.

then, on monday, august 21, 1911, vincenzo decided that today was the day to steal that painting. he woke up at 6am, got dressed in his white louvre worker’s uniform, and left his room in the tenth arrondissement (which had a large italian population btw), which was about two miles from the louvre. at around 7:05am, he arrived at the louvre, which was closed for its weekly cleaning. he entered through the jean goujin entrance and went through the first floor room, up the grand staircase, went left through a hallway, and turned left into the salon carré.

vincenzo had not previously decided to take the mona lisa, but chose it in the moment because it was the smallest painting there. this kind of ruined the whole “returning stolen paintings to italy” thing, because it had been bought by king francis i of france from leonardo da vinci while he was at his court. in france. it had moved around a bit since then, but has been kept in the louvre since 1797.

(the mona lisa was hung between the paintings "mystic marriage of saint catherine" by antonio da correggio and "the allegory of alfonso d'avalos" by titan. not important but just an extra detail...)

something to note: usually, the louvre had 166 guards; on mondays, it only had 12. the salon carré had no guards.

so, vincenzo took the painting off its four metal hooks, quietly walked out of the room and went into a service staircase. he hid the mona lisa behind some copies that had been made of various paintings (students frequently came in to copy paintings) and went to see if the door at the bottom—which would help him make a quick exit of the museum—was unlocked. it was not. he took out a screwdriver and removed the doorknob, but he still couldn’t open the door. he heard someone coming and sat down and tried to look inconspicuous. the person coming down the stairs was a plumber named jules sauvé. jules went to unlock the door, noticed the doorknob was missing, asked vincenzo what that was about, and vincenzo said he didn’t know anything about it. jules went through the door and locked it behind him.

accepting that he couldn’t leave through that door, vincenzo removed the mona lisa’s frame, which probably only took around a minute, and hid the frame behind those painting copies. he wrapped the painting in his smock (part of the uniform), placed it under his arm, and went back the way he entered the museum.

he left the louvre around 7:30am. a shop clerk on his way to work named andre bouquet was across the street and saw him carrying what he thought was a package and also saw him throw something into a ditch—the doorknob.

vincenzo got on a bus and immediately got off, realizing it wouldn’t take him back to his boarding house. instead, he got in a cab and went home.

some guards noticed the painting was missing, but just thought that it had been taken away to be photographed (paintings were often taken to be photographed on mondays. the photographs were to go on postcards and magazines), and didn't pay it much mind.

the next day, the louvre reopened, the mona lisa still wasn't there. around 11am, a guard found the painting's empty frame. the museum was searched, they thought it had to be around there somewhere, that maybe it had been hidden as a joke. but, to be careful, georges aaron bénédite, a curator substituting as the museum director (the actual museum director, théophile homolle, was away on vacation), contacted the prefect of police, louis lépine, who sent a bunch of detectives to go find it. they, of course, couldn't find it.

the theft was immediately international news. the mona lisa had been considered a masterpiece among french art fans since the 1860s, but now it had achieved proper fame, and literally everyone knew about the mona lisa. but the fame wasn't instantaneous—6500 flyers with pictures of the mona lisa were distrubuted so people would know it if they saw it and american newspapers misspelled the name and published photographs of the wrong painting.

a week after the theft, the louvre reopened, and people flooded in to see the empty spot on the wall (franz kafka was one of the people who went there to see it btw).

some famous suspects for the theft included: pablo picasso, bc he was an artist and (unknowingly) had stolen statues from the louvre in his possession; guillaume apollinaire, for similar reasons to picasso; jp morgan, bc he liked art and there was concern in france that american millionaires were buying all the good french paintings; kaiser wilhelm ii, bc france and germany had some pre-ww1 tensions going.

then some fingerprints were discovered on the glass by alphonse bertillon. 257 louvre workers had their fingerprints taken. then the gobier workers who had helped with the glass cases had their fingerprints taken, except for vincenzo, who didn’t show up.

meanwhile, vincenzo is still in paris at his little 9×16 room at 5 rue de l'hôpital st. louis. he first kept the painting on a table in his room covered by a piece of linen, then just had it sitting in his 6×6 closet. while it was just sitting there in the closet, inspector brunet of the sûreté came to interrogate him and quickly determined that he had nothing to do with it.

vincenzo’s life was normal, he just kept painting houses. he didn’t want to go to italy yet—he wanted to let everyone forget about the theft before he returned it so he wouldn’t get arrested.

btw, the whole time he had been in france, vincenzo had sent letters to his parents back in dumenza. after stealing the mona lisa, all his letters mentioned a “fortune” that he would soon have, and that he would share with his family. here we see vincenzo’s actual primary motive: getting money for himself and his family.

anyway. he showed the mona lisa to his best friend vincenzo lancellotti, who was also a housepainter and from the same region of italy. they played music together and ate together and dated women together <- examples of their best friendship activities. in winter of 1911, peruggia let lancellotti hold on to the mona lisa for six weeks while he built a crate with a false bottom to keep the painting in.

peruggia’s (i’m going to return to calling him vincenzo after this) girlfriend, mathilde, saw the crate. she told vincenzo that once they were married, she would get rid of it. but they were never married bc mathilde broke up with him after she found letters from other women in his room, and eventually she left paris permanently.

allegedly, in the summer of 1913, vincenzo went on a trip to london. while there, he went to see the art dealer henry j. duveen and tried to sell the mona lisa. we’ll get back to this later.

btw, people were beginning to think that the mona lisa had been destroyed, it had been years and no one could find it.

then, 28 months after the theft, in late 1913, vincenzo contacted an antiques dealer named alfredo geri, who he had heard about in an italian-language newspaper called the corriere della sera, about selling the painting. he signed his letter to him "leonardo v."

on december 7, 1913, peruggia had a meal at his favorite cafe and gave the waitress a tip of five francs. he announced that he was to be leaving for italy the next day. he told his assembled family and friends that he would be receiving “fortune, glory, and honors.” back in his room, he filled the top part of his mona lisa crate with clothing, tools, and his mandolin, and on december 8, set off on a train to florence. at the border, the crate was checked and the painting wasn’t found.

so alfredo and vincenzo meet. vincenzo offered to sell the mona lisa for 500,000 lire ($2,970,000 today). vincenzo said the painting was back in his room at the hotel he was staying at, the albergo tripoli-italian hotel (since renamed the hotel la gioconda). alfredo persuaded giovanni poggi, director of the uffizi gallery, to come with them (vincenzo specifically wanted the mona lisa to go be kept at the uffizi gallery). they all went up to room 20. vincenzo took everything out of the crate and revealed the painting. giovanni said he wanted to take the painting back to the uffizi gallery to see if it was the real deal. he and a few other experts examined it, and lo and behold, it was!

they then contacted the police and vincenzo was arrested, which he really was not expecting.

meanwhile, the italian people celebrated the mona lisa’s return to italy. it was kept in room 28 of the uffizi gallery. over 30,000 people visited the painting in just four hours; those who couldn’t get into the gallery rioted.

after a week in florence, the mona lisa traveled to rome, where it was handed over to the french ambassador. a good deal of italians wanted it to stay in italy, but y’know napoleon had never actually stolen it so they had no claim.

the mona lisa was exhibited in rome for a bit, then in milan, then it was returned to the louvre on december 31, 1913.

back to vincenzo: vincenzo’s trial began in florence on june 4, 1914. many italians still regarded him as a hero and a patriot. he denied ever trying to sell that painting to that guy in london and was angered by the accusation. his defense went for insanity; dr. paolo amaldi, the psychiatrist who examined him, had declared him "mentally deficient.” however, it’s possible that he lied about this because he supported vincenzo. paolo was a member of the socialist party, and vincenzo was probably some kind of leftist. also, paolo may have sympathized with vincenzo’s dislike of the french due to his (vincenzo’s) experiences as an immigrant worker.

that didn’t really matter though, as vincenzo was sentenced to one year and 15 days in prison. however, his attorneys filed an appeal and he was released after seven months and eight days.

(and remember vincenzo lancellotti? he and his brother, michele, were arrested and subsequently released without charges.)

world war 1 began a few days after vincenzo peruggia’s trial ended, and when he was released vincenzo joined the italian army. he was then captured by the austrians and was a prisoner of war for two years. at the end of the war he couldn’t find work in italy, so he went to paris with his wife annunciata. to avoid being detected by the french government who still hadn't gotten over the whole art theft thing, he adopted his birth name, pietro. they visited the louvre and saw the mona lisa.

also, he had a daughter named celestina. vincenzo died when she was a toddler. she said that her mother had told her to run toward him. she did and he collapsed, dead of a heart attack. also he was holding a tray of champagne & cookies at the time. this was on october 8, 1925, his 44th birthday.

30 years after he was buried, the cemetery needed the plot where he had been buried and what was left of him was moved into an underground locker thing.

and uh. i don't know where to put this but he was 5'3

[sushiandstarlight]

Cookies: Chapter 14

This chapter contains today’s prompt “cards/letters.”

Previous Story: Of All The Beds In All The Hotels In All The World

Chapters 1-3 / Chapter 4 / Chapters 5 & 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13

Read this story on AO3

Rated G

Personal Note: If you'll indulge me, most of this chapter is backstory on my OCs. I've had bits and pieces of this backstory floating around in my noggin since the first story. So, now you can have them, too. I was going to call them headcanons, but I suppose if it's for OCs then it's just canon. ;)

The next morning, astonishingly, he woke before 6am all on his own yet again. If this was becoming a habit, he thought, he didn't like it at all. Once they got home, he would find a way to break it. Early to rise, no thank you.

It did have its advantages, though, he thought as he took time to watch the sleeping angel beside him. Home would be different when they went back. Hopefully, in more than one way. But, if nothing else, home would be waking beside his beloved, potentially forever. That was, if the angel always slept. He did when Crowley was visiting and staying the night, but Crowley wasn't sure what he got up to when he wasn't there. He found himself more and more curious to know. Perhaps he should tell him he didn't always have to follow Crowley's whims. They would talk about it. No doubt, moving in together would involve a lot of talking about things. Or, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it would all fall together naturally. Either way, he wanted to be a part of the angel's life. What he didn't want to do was take it over completely.

But wouldn't it be nice, on the odd morning that the angel slept in, to sneak out of their bed (their bed! - he could see it... tartan sheets and a deep blue duvet covered in stars; it wouldn't match, but it would be theirs) and creep to the kitchen to make him breakfast? The surprise greeting a sleepy-faced angel. Soft, sappy kitchen kisses. His heart ached and squeezed with the thought, and he wanted. He Wanted. He wanted little mornings like that for the rest of his days.

He carefully pulled away from the still snoozing angel, tucking the blankets around him to create a little soft cocoon. Aziraphale nuzzled down into his pillow and let out a little snore. It nearly had Crowley crawling right back in beside him, sod breakfast. Nearly. Quietly as he could, he slipped into his trousers, jumper, and socks before padding downstairs.

There was no light on in the kitchen this morning, he discovered with some amount of shock. Maybe Gladys took the morning to sleep in after being up before dawn every day. She had earned it, for sure. Then he spotted light spilling out from the sun room. Poking his head around the doorframe he saw her on the loveseat beside the tree. She waved him over.

“Do you sleep at all?” He stood over her, hands on his hips.

“Oh, sometimes, if I can't help it,” Gladys' lips tilted up into a lopsided smirk, “Never was much good at it and running this place might not seem like an all day job, but it can be.”

“I can't imagine, one of my favorite states of existence is being unconscious.”

“I think I know what all the others are.”

Crowley hummed, following her gaze to the cookies hanging on the tree beside them.

“I've had a great time here, you know.”

“It's nice to know I didn't drag you here, kicking and screaming.”

“Nah, well maybe a little dragging,” Crowley sat down beside her, “ I think you know that. But, being with him here. It's made me more sure... you know, of us. That we work.”

“It was plain to me from the moment you both walked in here the very first time,” Gladys patted his knee, “but I know it can be hard to see that kind of thing when you're so close to it. And, well, we miss things that are right in front of us all the time.”

“True,” Crowley was thinking about how they had raised the wrong child together, neither of them realizing it wasn't the anti-christ. If you could miss that, you could probably miss near about anything.

“I was sitting here this morning looking at the things in this box...” Gladys shuffled through a hat box full of clear-loved slips of papers and envelopes, “They're letters and cards Edie and I sent to one another. Over 40 years worth. Christmases and Easters and birthdays and 'just thinking of you's...” She trailed off as she gently touched the letters.

“Did you always know?”

“No,” she looked a little wistful for a moment, “Edie says she always kind of knew her feelings for me were stronger than friendship... But, I... It's a fine kind of line isn't it?”

“Can be, sure.”

“Here we are at the beach, must be 8 years old there... Our families both vacationed there that year and that's how we met. We didn't even know we lived down the street from one another until we got back!” Gladys handed him a blurry, yellowed photo of two little girls. Their arms were twined over one another's shoulders and they were smiling like they might burst into giggles at an second.

“She knew then? At 8?”

“Not like that, really. She says she knew I was special and that she wanted to spend every moment with me. I loved her to bursting, but I can't say it was something more than the love for my family or my friendships up to that point. She was just... part of me. She wasn't there and then she was and I couldn't imagine how my life had been before her.”

“That sounds like love,” Crowley handed back the picture and sunk a bit into the cushions.

“Did you know? The moment you saw him?”

“Nah,” Crowley laughed, “I knew when he told me he had done something his superiors would hate, but that he'd done it out of kindness. Bit of a sucker for someone who makes their own choices, bit more for someone with good reasons. Not that you need to spread that around.”

“I'll cancel the skywriter.”

“Many thanks.”

“She wrote this to me right after her husband died,” she handed him a very worn letter, the seams where it was folded nearly coming apart, “He died young, you see, right after their second child was born. She said she didn't know who else to turn to.”

“Did you go to her?”

“Of course, I did.”

“But it didn't happen then?”

“No, I was still married myself.”

“Did you love your husband?”

“I did, he was good man. He worked hard and he tried to give me and our children a good life,” she took the letter back and tucked it carefully away, and hugged the box to her stomach, “He was one of my best friends, Crowley, he truly was. Do I think I loved him romantically? Was it the same? No, not quite. But, it worked. I don't regret what we had or what we built and I do miss him. What he left me, I used to buy this inn and bring it to life. So, I like to think he's here, in a way.”

“So you went to her but you didn't stay?”

“I stayed for a while. I helped with the kids to give her some time to grieve. She loved her husband just as fiercely as she loves me. A heart can do that, you know? Edie's got a lot of room in her heart, it's breathtaking. And it takes time to heal after a loss,” she handed him another picture, this time with two twenty-something women, each with a child on their hip. It was clearly the same people from the first photo, but they weren't smiling here, “Even if I had been ready, she wasn't.”

“Ships passing in the night.”

“Just so. Ah, here she is after she started teaching gradeschool,” Gladys showed him a picture of a woman surrounded by a passel of little kids, some clinging to her skirts, before taking it back and touching the photo reverently, “I had some idea by then. I'm not sure I could have put it in words, you understand. But, something about this photo... This smile. I remember thinking I loved her and I missed her. Which was silly, since we saw each other fairly regularly- every other week or so we would get together. It just... it wasn't quite enough. It was never enough time.”

“Aziraphale and I were like that for most of time. I always looked forward to seeing him, bumping into him while on assignment. But, it was never for long. And it wasn't always a good meeting- we worked for competing companies. Eventually, we started find excuses to see one another. This one time he got jailed and, he's never confirmed this, but I'm fairly certain it was just so I would bail him out,” Crowley laughed and Gladys shook her head and smiled, “So Edie never remarried?”

“No, by then she was busy raising the kids. And, as she put it to me at the time, no one else struck her fancy. I didn't know she meant no one else, other than me.”

“And you were still married, then?”

“Yes, my husband didn't pass until about, oh, it's been a little over ten years now.”

“I'm sorry for you loss.”

“Thanks, dear,” she patted his knee again.

“So, then, what was it in the end? That final thing that slipped into place?”

“Edie is retired from it now, but at the time my Frank died she was still teaching,” Gladys handed him a photo of the inn, but it looked very different from how it looked now: dilapidated and over grown, the roof was caved in and several windows were shattered, “I decided since my kids were off on their own and I had time and hurt on my hands, that I should do something with it. I've always been active about my feelings that way. If you've got energy of any kind, you need to make it useful. That's what I think.”

Crowley hummed, handing the photo back and taking the next: an older Edie stood in the foyer with a hammer in hand. She was smiling goofily around the nails in her mouth.

“She was here every day after work, mending this place with me. Weekends, summer break. I had enough money to fix it up, but only if I did a lot of the smaller repairs myself. I have no idea how long it would have taken if not for her help.”

She took the photo and handed him another. This one was different. It was candid- and Crowley wondered who might have taken it- the two of them holding paint rollers pointed at one another, paint smeared across both of their cheeks and most of their clothes.

“It was that night, if you'll believe it. We had goofed off all day. I know we were covered in more paint than the walls. It was a beautiful spring night and we had dinner out on the porch. Blanket spread on the floor, you know, since I hadn't received the furniture yet. We shared a bottle of cheap wine over dinner and afterwards, when I was all warm and fuzzy I asked her why she never married again. I was sure there was someone out there that was worth her time, even if I never felt anyone was good enough. That's a way friends think.”

“Uh huh...” The very idea of someone else being good enough for Aziraphale made Crowley's skin crawl and his stomach drop. He wasn't sure he was good enough, but he didn't want the angel to even entertain the idea of someone else, “What did she say?”

“That I was a damn old fool.”

“Rude!” Crowley clutched his chest with exaggerated affront.

“She was right.”

“Still. Bit on the nose.”

“Maybe. But then she touched my cheek and leaned in and kissed me.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“And you realized the error of your ways?”

“Eh, I might've freaked out a little,” Gladys laughed softly, “but I came around quick enough. She gave me the time to do it.”

“I waited decades for you, I could wait another few days watching you get your head on straight,” it was Edie's voice, they looked over to find her leaning on the doorframe. She came closer, sitting on the coffee table and poking at the box in Gladys' lap, “I can't believe you kept all of this.”

“As if you don't have your own box,” Gladys huffed, clutching hers to her belly.

“Yeah, but I knew.”

“She'll be rubbing this in my face until the hereafter,” Gladys spoke to Crowley, but pointed a thumb back at Edie. Edie grabbed her hand in both of hers and kissed it, smiling at her, “And I don't mind.”

“As long as we're together, eh?” Edie tugged her hand happily.

“Did I miss a breakfast party?” It was Aziraphale now at the sunroom door, still looking warm and sleepy, but with a smile brightening his face as he saw Crowley, “I wondered where you got off to.”

“I'm going to make my angel some breakfast,” Crowley whispered to the ladies in his company.

“Not much space left in there.”

“I just need a burner, a bowl, and the ingredients for some crepes. If... if that's okay?”

“Oh, go on then.” Gladys gave him a shove and he got up, loping over to Aziraphale. As he took the angel's hand and led him away, he saw Edie curl up next to Gladys, pawing through the box in her lap.

Chapter 15 is up!

[bigyack-com]

From Beed to Tokyo, Sable’s long, hard run

“Bas, zid thi (I was just stubborn)!”Stubborn sums up Avinash Sable.Zid, of single-handedly plucking his family out of poverty. Zid, of making his way into the Indian Army. Zid, of discovering his love for running, and in less than five years after becoming an athlete, smashing through a national record that has stood for decades—bettering it three more times in the space of a year—and becoming the first Indian man to make the final of the 3000m steeplechase race at the 2019 World Athletics Championship and qualify for the 2020 Olympics.Travel to Mandava, where Sable was born and raised, and it’s not hard to see the source of his deep-set tenacity.Eight kilometres inland from the highway that runs from Mumbai to Beed, Mandava is a village with roughly 2,500 people and little land. The road that leads to the village is rocky and cracked during the long dry months, and muddy and non-existent when it rains. In November, when this correspondent visited, the village’s farmlands lay mostly barren—barring a few patches of wheat, and a few groves of lemon trees.It is here that Sable first started running, more out of compulsion than as a sport.Sable’s parents—father Mukund and mother Vaishali—own a small parcel of land, but like almost every family in the village, struggled to make ends meet with farming. Instead, Mukund and Vaishali started taking up daily wage jobs—as labourers to construct and repair roads near Lonavala and Pune, or as workers at a brick kiln near the village.

“We would leave at 3am for work after waking up at 2am to prepare the day’s food for Avinash and Yogesh (Avinash’s younger brother). And we would return only late in the evening after we got our day’s money,” Mukund, sitting on a charpoy outside his house, recalls.For a young Sable, these years of struggle left a deep impression. “Working hard is in my blood,” Sable says. “Whatever memories I have of my childhood, most of it is seeing my parents’ struggles to feed me and my brother every night.”And thus, despite not having the luxury of a cycle like some other boys, Sable says he never thought twice about the difficulties of reaching his school, 6km from his house, on foot. On the contrary, Sable, as early as when he was eight years old, began to find a solitary joy in running those 12km to and from his school every day.Swinging a plastic bag filled with his books, Sable would run on. “Woh kehte hai na, God’s gift,” Sable says. “I have that with running. Whenever I used to run, people would say, ‘This boy never gets tired of running’.”His primary school teacher, Babasaheb Taware, was one of the people who noticed.When he was in the 4th standard, Sadashiv took Sable to a school athletic meet for a 1000m race. Sable came first.“He had the talent and discipline but more importantly, he had guts,” Taware says. “That’s when I knew he was not an ordinary boy.”Taware knew he had to look after the boy carefully; when Sable’s father told him that he was thinking of taking the boy along daily to the brick kiln since there was no one home to take care of him, Taware intervened. He offered to take Sable home with him instead after school, and Mukund could pick him up on his way back from the kiln.“If he had gone with his father at that time, he wouldn’t have become a runner,” the 47-year-old Taware says.When he was 11 years old, conditions at home forced Sable’s parents to send him to live in a hostel for economically backwards children. Here, his running talent was spotted again. This time, he was sent to the Aurangabad Krida Prabodhini centre (Krida Prabodhini is an ambitious state-run programme which runs residential sports schools across the state to groom potential athletes).Ironically, it backfired. In the four years that Sable spent at the Krida Prabodhini, from standards 7 through to 10, his running career all but stopped.“I was very short as a kid, so no one there thought that I could do well in long-distance running. I didn’t perform well in any race that I participated in during those years,” Sable says.Sable thought that his sporting career was over. After finishing school, he returned home and enrolled in a college, hoping to pick up odd jobs after class to help his family—for a six-hour workday at a construction site, he earned ~100, he says.For all the change in his life, one old habit returned. Still without any form of transport, Sable began running again—house to college, and back—16km every day.And just like in school, another teacher saw Sable’s potential—the college’s physical education coach, Zameer Sayyed, took Sable under his wings, helping him train before and after classes. On Sundays, when there was no college, Sable would do a 10k run to a sugar factory down the highway; the teenage athlete’s workload was monstrous.Between 2010 and 2012, Sayyed paid from his own pockets to take Sable to taluk, district, division and state level 5000m races. Sable was, literally, far ahead of the competition.“Those races were of 12.5 rounds (around a 400m track), and by the time Sable finished, his competitors would be in the ninth or 10th round,” Sayyed, sitting in the college sports room with a basketball in hand, says. “While the others would get tired after seven-eight rounds, this guy would increase his speed. His stamina was something else.”The zid was back.“Deep down my heart, that’s when I felt that I could do something in running,” Sable says.Sayyed recalls how for a felicitation ceremony organised by the college after Sable won one of the state races, he advised the principal to hand the boy a cash price of ~2,000 so that he could buy running shoes.“He needed money, and he needed to run. I was trying to help with both,” Sayyed says.But for all his passion for running, it was still not a viable way of making money, and Sable desperately needed to earn. At 17, Sable made his way to an open trial held by the army in Osmanabad. He passed the physical and was summoned for a written test in Pune. Without money for a hotel, Sable spent the night sleeping at the gates of the Army Institute.On December 2012, Sable joined the Mahar Regiment of the Indian Army. His first posting, in the winter of 2013, was Siachen, the world’s highest battlefield. For a man who had never seen snow before, Sable found himself in a place where it seemed to never stop snowing. He spent two years there, with no thought of running. Then he was posted to the desert town of Lalgarh Jattan, near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan, where summer temperatures hover near 50 degrees. Sable distinctly remembers one evening in the soaring heat, when he and his fellow jawans were talking of running.“We were sitting in the mess, and some boys told me, ‘You run well, but cross country is not easy. You won’t be able to do it’,” Sable says. “That was my turning point. I wanted to prove them wrong. Bas, zid thi.”Even as his colleagues would begin their training at 6am, Sable woke up at 4 to run alone. The solo act would continue for an hour in the evening too, when everyone else would relax after the hard day’s toil.Sable ran his first inter-army cross country race in 2016, and immediately came under the notice of Amrish Kumar, the army’s long-distance running coach. Kumar picked up Sable to be a part of the army’s camp for the top 22 long-distance runners held in January 2017 in Hyderabad, where his running pathway took a dramatic detour.Kumar, a steeplechase runner back in his younger days, knew that ‘Shivaji Maharaj’—as he teasingly called Sable—was not meant to rule the cross country circuit. So, one evening during the camp when his steeplechase athletes were crossing hurdles while training, Kumar summoned Sable for a conversation.“I told him, ‘Come, I’ll show you a new game today’,” Kumar recalls. “He asked me, ‘How do I cross the hurdle?’I asked a 12-year-old girl to jump and show, which she did. Avinash laughed seeing that.“I said, ‘Shivaji Maharaj, do you think of yourself as a Maratha’? He said, ‘Yes sir, I do’. I said, ‘If you’re a true Maratha, you will cross this hurdle easily’.”Sable was convinced.“He came to me and said, ‘Okay sir, I’ll do it (steeplechase)’,” Kumar says. “I said, ‘You won’t just do it, you will break records in six months’.“I told him, ‘You come from an area (Beed district) which is so challenging that it can break the best. But it didn’t break you. So you can do this.” Kumar recalls.So sure was Kumar about Sable that for the Open Nationals in Chennai in September that same year, he called up other coaches in advance and told them that he was bringing a boy who will leave everyone else behind. True to his coach’s words, Sable won gold with a timing of 8:39.81s.What gave him that confidence in a rookie who, till a few months ago, had no idea about steeplechase?“His muscles and body physics,” explains Kumar. “His height is not that much, but if you look at the world’s top steeplechase runners, they’re not that tall. Sable’s muscles were long and strong, like a horse.”“Pehle se hi ghoda tha woh (He was a horse from before),” Taware, the primary teacher, says. “In school, when he played kho-kho, no one could catch him for four-five minutes; he would keep running in circles without getting tired. That’s how his muscles became so strong.”It doesn’t come as a surprise to either Taware or Kumar—who is still Sable’s coach—that the Beed man has made such giant strides in the last 18 months. Sable set a new steeplechase national record at the 2018 Open Nationals in Bhubaneswar in September with a timing of 8:29.80s, erasing Gopal Saini’s 1981 mark. He has since re-written that record three more times; it now stands at 8:21.37s, which he ran in the final of the Doha World Championships in October to book his ticket to Tokyo.That final was watched by children in Sable’s school once it was up on YouTube. The school now has a smart TV installed in the principal’s cabin, and the village sarpanch has already decided that the people of Mandava will watch Sable’s Olympics race together on that TV.Since he joined the army, Sable rarely finds time to visit home; but things have changed there. His parents do not have to do daily wage labour anymore; Sable has ensured a steady source of money. Instead, they cultivate lemons on their two acres of land. From the earthen house Sable grew up in, his parents have shifted to a brick-and-cement home with one room and a separate kitchen.“We never dreamt of this,” Mukund says. “We were daily wage earners with no money. But destiny favoured Avinash and made his life.”For Sable, the next few months will be lived the way he likes it—with the single-minded pursuit of a goal.“Ever since I qualified for the Olympics, I’ve set my mind on giving my life to it,” Sable says. “I want to put on a show that will create history for India.“Bas, zid hai.” Read the full article

[tstravels]

May 13, 2017 (Day 3)

We woke up soaked in sweat and permeated by the humidity. Like I said, we couldn’t get the AC to work last night so it was SOOOO hot this morning. I woke up at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I opened my window with the screen and just puttered around the apartment for a bit, taking pictures of the sunrise over the Indian Ocean. After some tossing and turning, I managed to go back to sleep until 8:30am. We woke up and immediately went to get internet. It took about an hour at the store and is set up really weirdly here. We got Airtel (the same company as our phones), but the modem is basically a big data source. Like we have 40 GB of internet for 30 days and if we run out, we have to recharge at the airtel store through a process that neither of us understand, but the kind Airtel lady said we could come back if we needed help. Then, we moved on to fixing our apartment. We called the front desk and they hung up on us twice before getting someone to come up. I’ve found that Tanzania requires a lot of trust. There have been multiple instances where we just had to take someone’s word for it, and it seemed like it wouldn’t happen, but actually it turned out quite well (visas, rent payment, these repairs). There were a total of three workers who had to come up separately. They all wore a long bright, differently colored, lab coat that said their job title on the back. For example, the air conditioning man wore a bright yellow lab coat that said “AC” on the back, while the electrician wore a bright red code that said “Electrician” on the back. It could’ve been literally any person off the street with an “Electrician” coat, and we wouldn’t have known the difference. All of these workers helped us immensely and very quickly. The AC was really embarrassing, because we made such a fuss about it (just to ourselves, not to the AC guy), and there was literally just one button we weren’t pressing and it worked. He also replaced some sort of gas tank, but we’re not sure what that had to do with the AC. Again, here’s the trust thing coming into play. Most of these workers didn’t speak English (ref: Misc section) so it was hard to explain the problem and our internet wasn’t working so we couldn’t even use google translate. You don’t know how much you rely on the internet until you have literally nothing. After some of our things were fixed, we walked 6 miles to Coco Beach, in the Oyster Bay neighborhood aka the ex-pat area. The beach was very dirty, but it was nice to put our feet in the ocean at least. First time in the Indian Ocean too! We sat in a restaurant and had soda, but weren’t served food. We walked another 2ish miles to this shopping center called Shipway where it was superrrrr ex-pat-y and ate a nice restaurant on the ocean. I had a greek salad and beef samosas, and it was just okay. After dinner, we took a 3 wheeled tuk-tuk like thing halfway back, until it broke down and we had to walk the rest of the way. All the travel blogs I read said to NEVER take those things, but I really think it was fine? We found our way home by only looking at a map once, which I think is pretty impressive when there are barely any street signs and we’ve only been here one full day. We spent the rest of the night calling the plumber and unpacking our suitcases. Misc. Everyone confuses me and Stacey. We’re both tall and blonde and people cannot tell us apart, even if they’ve been talking to us for like a half hour. That’s never happened to me before, but I guess I know how minorities feel now when white people say that all ______ look the same. Ugh. No one can pronounce my name. People think I say Terry and so far I’ve just run with that. When I read that the national languages were Swahili and English, I expected most people to speak Swahili and English. It’s partially true, but the English really isn’t there. I’ve only been called “mzunga” (white person) on the street twice. In our two days and many many (10+) miles of walking around the city, I’ve seen maybe 2 other white people. This doesn’t include the ex-pat area though, where there were maybe 10. That’s okay, but just different. I’ve never been in a situation where I’m THAT much of a minority in an entire city. Again, *privilege*. So far, the food here is just okay.

[theladyjstyle]

Brilliance of the Seas Live Blog – Day 1 - Embarkation Day | Royal Caribbean…

Brilliance of the Seas Live Blog – Day 1 - Embarkation Day

My cruise day has finally arrived; of course I woke up at 6AM to watch the Brilliance of the Seas pull into the port of Tamp Bay. I never set an alarm to do this; I just naturally wake up, due to all the excitement.

I was planning to walk over to the ship this morning, but my girlfriend was heading out at 10:30AM and offered to drop me off. arrived at 10:30AM down at the new terminal 6 in Tampa.

Royal Caribbean is almost always at this terminal now; my expectations were very low, based on recent reviews. However, it might have been the smoothest boarding process ’ve ever seen. think it helped that it was so early in the morning, but I didn’t wait in a line during the whole process, I just walked right on board.

 My first hour on board was exploring the ship, taking it all in. It’s been two years since I’ve sailed on Brilliance, so I was trying to take it all in.

 I went into the Solarium around 11:30am and noticed the pool was closed due to some repair work and fresh paint. I relaxed and waited until noon when Park Café opened in the Solarium.

 For those of you that might be looking for a more relaxing day 1 meal, I highly recommend Park Café. It’s included in the cruise fare and surprisingly I was the only one here. I had a salad and the favorite roast beef sandwich.

  After lunch I went to explore the ship more, that’s when I noticed people were lined up buying the drink package on board. The price was $63 per day, plus 18% service charge. I’m always so surprised people don’t buy the package in the cruise planner online when they run discounts. If you didn’t want to purchase the drink package they had the drink of the day for $8.

 At 1pm the cabins opened up and mine is just a few feet from the centrum. I booked a solo cabin on this cruise, room 4587. They have three solo cabins on Brilliance of the Seas and they are a great value for solo passengers.

The room reminds me of a college dorm room almost, just a twin bed, closet, small desk, and the bathroom. I love the location of the cabin since it’s maybe 5 seconds away from the centrum. The cabin itself has plenty of storage and the bathroom is standard like all the other cabins.

 Muster drill was at 3:15pm, nothing exciting to report just the usual standing on the outside decks. I was in my cabin when the alarm went off and my cabin attendant kindly reminded me it was time to go.

After the drill I went looking for my luggage since it still hadn’t arrived. Since my solo cabin is off on a small hallway by itself of only 9 total cabins it takes a little longer for them to bring the bags. They actually come up on the other side of the ship and they must pass through the centrum to bring them over to us. I wanted to get unpacked and ready for the night. I was able to find them and get ready for the evening.

Tonight I wanted to take advantage of some free cocktails, since I don’t have a drink package. I went into both the Concierge lounge and Diamond Lounge tonight.

 The Concierge lounge is large; they have outside seating, a lot of tables, and even a sit-down bar in the lounge. I stayed in the lounge for two hours just making friends with everyone; it’s one of my favorite parts of cruising all the new people you get to meet from all over the world.

 At 6:30PM we passed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, everyone in the lounge rushed out to the outside deck to see it.  It's always exciting to see this and right at sunset made it even better.  

 The Diamond lounge was much smaller with maybe 10 tables, however they have a view over looking the pool deck. So I guess it’s a give and take on which lounge I like better.

Dinner tonight was in Giovanni’s Table at 8PM. I purchased the BOGO offer online for $30 that lets you dine night 1 & night 2. I made my reservations right when I got on board at Chops for both restaurants. When I arrived I first noticed it was empty, other than two other tables and myself that was it.

  The service was outstanding; it was like I had the whole staff waiting on me. I had a few starters and my favorite the filet. They suggested I come back tomorrow night, but I told them I’ll be in Chops.

 But, they did talk me into coming back night 3 and 4! The manager gave me a discount offer to come back later during the cruise.

I wish I had some entertainment updates but I didn’t see any shows or enjoy any music around the ship. After dinner at 9:30PM I actually went to bed! I was pretty tired from my full day and decided to get some sleep before my sea day tomorrow.

 My bar tab for the day was $14 without the drink package, I purchased a beer and another using my BOGO coupon pre-loaded on the sea pass card.

 Category: 

Brilliance of the Seas Live Blog

https://plus.google.com/+Jpkc13/posts/JWMr2kqPhXw

[into-the-nether-blog1]

Fear and frustration are dining.

Frustration because Mom and Dad are fighting.

Fear because I’m scared of SSRI’s after the Celexa.

I had a psych appointment today at 8AM, way too early for someone with insomnia. I decided to take a melatonin last night, they’re always a gamble. Sometimes they make me sleepy, others.....I may as well have taken ibuprofen and called it good. It actually worked though, I did get drowsy. Unfortunately that’s only half the battle, the other would have been being able to stay asleep....

Between a nightmare, tossing and turning, and our cat digging to China in a box, it was less than restful. 

I had a false-awakening dream, that repeated itself multiple times. I woke up to a scurrying sound beside the bed. I reached down to bat at one of the cats, only to find it was a rat! So I grab it, right behind the head so it wouldn’t bite me. Now, I’m thinking, ‘WHAT do I do with it NOW?!’  In the panic, I seem to have woken up from the dream....only for it to play out again...and again...and again. The last variation had about 7 or so rats running around the ottoman I use as a nightstand. I’m swinging at them trying to knock them down, but I seem to be bound to the bed. 

When I actually did awake, my heart was pounding and I was trying to catch my breath. I tossed in failing attempts to fall back asleep. When I would dose off, I would wake myself up groaning from another nightmare. 

The rat nightmare wouldn’t have been such a huge deal, well...until 5 years ago it wouldn’t have. We were homeless at the time, and we’d just gotten into the first place we could afford. It was a run down, poorly kept 2 bedroom, 1 bath shack in a crappy neighborhood. The paint was peeling, there was no heat or air, a hole in the kitchen floor, no insulation and we had (at the time) 8 people crammed in it. And you guessed it....it was over run with rats.

They would come in at night, climb on top of the water heater, and try to get into the kitchen trash. They would run over people as they slept! One morning we found one in the kitchen cabinet. It ended up biting my, at the time, boyfriend when he went to remove it. We complained to the landlord, he said he’d fix it, and he never did! So getting out of there as soon as possible was a priority. We ended up stuck there for 8 months. 

So rats are a reflection of how bad things were and how bad I’m afraid they’ll get again.

So I dragged out of bed at 6am, not wanting to be anywhere in the world and grabbed a bite to eat. I said screw it at 6:30, I was going to catch some extra sleep, so I crawled back into bed. Mom woke me at 7:15 to get going. I had to practically pour myself into the car. 

The psych evaluation went quicker than I expected. She ended up writing me a prescription for Zoloft, Trazodone, and Prazosin. Which I’m not going to be able to get the Prazosin, they tell me it doubles as a nightmare med. It’s going to be $22 at the least for a month’s prescription.  Now of these, here comes the fear, Zoloft makes me nervous. It’s in the same family as the Celexa.  Celexa ended up changing a defining factor of my personality. I was EXTREMELY empathetic to everyone, be them real or fictional. Now? I’m struggling with empathy. My fiance and I, brought our concerns up to my doctor 4 months into the prescription, something wasn’t right. He assured us that it was normal and I was still in the adjustment period.  A year later, I’m an emotional zombie. And this is after taking MYSELF off of it. It took me until yesterday to realize I’ve been depressed for about a month now.

I’ve been off of Celexa for 7 months now, I’m still showing the lack of empathy. Not to mention the random burst of aggression. 

So I’m looking at Zoloft pretty hard, even though I told the psychiatrist what had happened with Celexa. She said she knew that it was worrisome with it being in the same family, but she liked what it did for her female patience. I hope I’m one of them, and that it doesn’t ruin me further. I know now, if I start feeling or seeing something that doesn’t look right? I’m stopping before it’s too late. It’s not worth anymore danger to my personality or to my relationship.

Now, onto the frustration. 

I went with Mom to her doctor’s appointment later in the day, Dad didn’t feel like going. Since our car is still overheating, she doesn’t like to go out by herself.  (So far they’ve replaced the thermostat, repaired various leaks, replaced a clamp, and a screw. Yet STILL it overheats!) It was running hot by the time we made it to her doctor’s appointment. I ended up passing out in the car while she went inside. She comes out and says her blood pressure is running high, 190/100 and she’s gained 10 pounds. How she ever gains weight, I’ll never know. Of everyone in the house, she eats the healthiest! So, I ask her what is going on, she says stress. 

We get home and she tells Dad. Dad immediately becomes concerned. Not to mention they put her on another round of antibiotics because she’s worried she’s about to go into ANOTHER round of pneumonia. So now Dad has more stress and worry added to his plate. 

Dad has been dealing with a lot of depression as of late, and today it was particularly bad due to things going on within his inner circle of friends. He was making the announcement he was going to ‘withdraw’ himself, which he goes through these periods here and there. My fiance was worried and went to ask him what was going on. He immediately got defensive and hostile, which made Mom stop her movie and ask what was going on. Then they started arguing.  My fiance, being the wise man that he is, quickly duct out. 

Dad has depression, anxiety, PTSD, fibromyalgia, ADHD, and he has Aspergers. He gets easily overwhelmed and he really does need therapy, even though he hasn’t done what he should. We’ve been discussing therapy for Dad since the end of last year, but the only available therapist at the time was a joke.

We tend to stay out of things when they start arguing, Mom’s having her own rough time of lack of empathy. As I discussed in the first post here. It’s all frustrating and stressful on all of us.