#i. almost posted this without coloring marchs cane.

[speedy-beans]

any character can use mobility aids if i want them to

[theoriginalladya]

Snowball fight for Team Lachlan.

from this list

On AO3 here

Thank you so much for asking about Lachlan!!!!  It’s time to actually get writing and posting for him, I think!  :D

Under cut for length.  Enjoy!

~~~

 The moment they set foot on the island, Lachlan senses the difference.  Like the quick drop in temperature when a cold front passes through, it’s instantaneous and noticeable.  Eyes closing, he inhales slowly, deeply, leaning heavily against his cane and for just a moment. A gentle breeze toys with the ginger locks, teasing them into a swooshing cascade that cover his right eye. And in the distance, echoing throughout the valley, he swears he can hear ‘Hielan’ Laddie’ playing on the pipes as the troops march off into battle …

A strong yet gentle hand at his shoulder pulls Shepard back to the present with a start.  Breath hitching in the cold winter air, he blinks over at his companion as the connection breaks.  “What?”

He’s met by a warm smile and an easy shake of the head as Kaidan replies, “Just … checking.  You seemed like you were a million miles away.”

Lachlan relaxes and takes comfort from the concern in those whiskey-colored eyes.  How long has it been?  The mental math brings a smile to his whiskered jaw.  Almost eleven years?  Aye, that’s a time, but we’ve known one another far longer than that.  With a smile, he slides his hand behind Kaidan’s head and pull him in for a quick but thorough kiss.  When he releases him, the smile is still present.  “Aye, I was,” he replies honestly, “but not where you think.” Using his free hand, he gestures to the scenic view around them.  “Have you ever seen a place so beautiful?  One that bleeds history like this?”  

The castle of Eilean Donan stands open before them, awaiting their arrival.  Tucked away in the highlands of Scotland, it is the ancestral home to Shepard’s mother’s family, a place he’s wanted to visit since his youth, having grown up on stories and traditions that the MacRaes passed down through generations. The reapers never made it this far north; there was no need, and so it survives unblemished for the most part.

Another cold gust of wind blows across the loch, and Lachlan snuggles deeper into his heavy jacket.  With the war over now and his wounds mostly healed, he and Kaidan have come to visit Fiona MacRae Shepard’s homeland.  A journey years in the making, it has more impact now, after all they endured to get here.   

“Can’t say that I have,” Kaidan says as he looks around the grounds.  

They have directions on where to go; their visit is a private one, specific to the Savior of the Galaxy himself and his companion. The reapers may not have reached here, but there is no less pride for the man who saved them all from extinction because of it.  

Carefully, Lachlan and Kaidan head toward the main gate. The grounds are covered in snow – a storm blew through the night before, blanketing the castle and surrounding area beneath a layer of frosty fluff that brings the place alive – but the groundskeeping staff have cleared a safe path for them.  Still, they take it slow and easy; not their usual SOP, but a new ‘normal’ since the end of the war.

Once inside the keep, they are met by a guide who gives them a tour of the interior and explains the history of the family and the place as well as answers whatever questions they have.  Lachlan is amazed to discover that many of the tales his mother used to tell came directly from MacRae area.  For the first time since he was sixteen, he finds strength in his connection to her.  

The tour lasts for a couple of hours, at which point Lachlan and Kaidan are released to roam the grounds as they please.  Somehow, and despite Lachlan’s lingering injuries, they find their way up to the castle battlements and spend some time walking. They exist together in silence, taking in the scenery, listening to the world as it lives around them.  About halfway through, they come to a stop for Lachlan to rest. Leaning heavily against the wall, he stares out over the lochs at the highlands surrounding them.  What was it Anderson said up on the Citadel at the end? Seems like years since I just sat down…  Lachlan breathes in fully, deeply.  I understand, my friend.  I understand.  

When he opens his eyes again, he asks in a voice filled with wonder and awe, “Can you imagine?”

Kaidan stands beside him, similar stance with his arms braced against the brick.  “Imagine what?”

Turning, a hint of mischievousness in his blue eyes, Lachlan grins over at him.  “Imagine playing here?  Outdoors? Listening to the notes echo up and down the valley?”  He lifts an arm and circles it around them to indicate the general geographic area.

Kaidan chuckles softly.  “I know you and your imagination, so I should probably say, ‘yes,’ to that.”  Facing Lachlan, he eyes him cautiously.  “Do you want to start playing again?  Your cello, I mean.”

Lachlan sighs as he straightens, balancing himself with one hand on the wall and the other on his cane.  His gaze drops to his left hip and leg, the source of most of his troubles these days.  “I would like to, yes,” he replies.  “Am I capable of it?”  He shrugs. “That’s another story just now.”  

“Give it time; it’ll heal.”  

The words are soft, gentle, reassuring, but Lachlan suspects Kaidan knows more about the severity of the injuries than he lets on.  “Haven’t I given it enough time?”  His fist closes around the top of the cane, frustration eating away at him.  “Between surgery and physical therapy, haven’t I covered all there is to do?”  Kaidan has the patience of a saint; practically a requirement to be married to Lachlan, but after months cooped up in hospital, that is put to the test more frequently.    

“Everyone heals differently, and you know that.”

Another point that leaves Lachlan bent out of shape. Huffing softly, he counters, “What about the synthetics?  Why don’t they speed things up like they used to?”

“They are.”  Kaidan sighs and runs a hand though his hair before facing Lachlan again. “You have no idea just how close you came to losing your life, do you?”

Lachlan opens his mouth to respond, but it’s the slight warble in Kaidan’s voice, that hint of a crack, that keeps him silent and has him turning back to the wall to stare out over the lochs once more.  “In all honesty,” he says after a minute or two, “I didn’t expect to live.”  A shudder shakes his too-thin frame.  

Kaidan moves beside him in an instant, arm sliding around him, hugging his waist and pulling him close.  They’ve had this conversation only once, back in the early days of his recovery when it was still an open, raw wound like so many others. These days, it still lingers where the rest have mostly healed.  “Have I mentioned today just how thankful I am you did?”

Their eyes meet and Lachlan stares at him before leaning into the embrace and huffing softly.  “Didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

Kaidan lifts a hand to Lachlan’s cheek.  “No, listen.  You could have died at any time along the way.”

“I seem to recall I did.”

The biotic’s lips press into a momentary tight line before he continues, ignoring the comment and pushing forward.  “But you didn’t,” he stresses.  “You kept fighting, you kept going, and we defeated the reapers.”

Lachlan’s hand rises to cover Kaidan’s, squeezing gently. “You don’t approve of my dark humor, do you?”

“It isn’t a matter of approval,” Kaidan argues. “It’s a matter of truth.  You’re the one who got us here, and you managed to survive that.  Way I see it, that’s a good thing.”

Kaidan’s left eye twitches, a small, subtle movement that settles into a tightness all too familiar, and one Lachlan knows well. “Migraine?” he asks quietly, changing the topic without warning.  When Kaidan looks confused, Lachlan runs his thumb gently over the tightness.  

“I’m fine.”  

Lachlan doesn’t argue; it never gets him anywhere if he pushes it anyway.  Instead, and typical of him, his mood jumps from one extreme to the next to the next, seemingly of its own free will.  “Yeah?” He waggles an eyebrow at his husband as his own lips curl into a smirk.  “How fine is that?”  He leans on his cane and takes a step backwards, continuing, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you are quite fine in my book.  Number one, as a matter of fact.  But …?”

Rolling his eyes Kaidan turns away, but not before Lachlan notices the twitch at the corner of his lips.  Good.  Okay, I can work with this.  Let’s get things back on track …  “Hey,” he calls out in mock indignation, hobbling after him carefully, “where do you think you’re going?”

Kaidan doesn’t turn around and instead uses one hand to point East.  “Sun’s setting.  Dinner will be soon.  Can’t miss that.”

“Pfft.  There you go, thinking with your stomach again!”  

Kaidan snorts.  “Occupational hazard.”

The stairs down are a bit of a trick, but Lachlan navigates them fairly well, all things considered.  As they exit out onto the grounds, he hears the tell-tale sounds of a bagpipe starting up – not nearby, but close enough the notes travel across the water to fill the area.  A grin forms as the notes find a familiar pattern.  Scotland the Brave.  “You going to slow down and wait for me?” he calls out, humming along with the familiar tune as he keeps moving.

“You going to quit belittling dinner?”

“Hah!  That depends.”  Outside of the castle, they head onto the bridge that will take them to the carpark. Kaidan is still some distance ahead, but Lachlan knows how to get his attention again in a more creative fashion; something he’s wanted to do since their first trip to Noveria together all those years ago.  As he hobbles along, his free hand scoops some of the snow lying atop the walls of the stone bridge, shaping it carefully.  “Hey, Kaid?”

Kaidan stops, nearly on the other side, and waits. A few heartbeats pass, but there are times when Lachlan can be just as patient as the other man, and this is one of them.  Finally Kaidan turns around to face him … at which point, Lachlan launches the snowball. It lands squarely in the center of the biotic’s chest.  As Lachlan grins, Kaidan’s eyes widen … darken …

Lachlan ducks the snowy missile Kaidan launches at him in retaliation, just barely missing it.  In the same move, he makes another for himself.  Several minutes pass of back and forth, expertly aimed missiles, occasional hits and misses; of both men laughing and simply enjoying the fact they are still alive despite years filled with doubts, concerns and uncertainties. Finally, they call an end to the battle and wind up in each other’s arms – Lachlan dodging awkwardly on his bad hip before losing his balance, and Kaidan diving over to catch him – both soaked through, red-faced, but in a far improved mood than before.  

Leaning in, Lachlan trails a few kisses along Kaidan’s jaw while murmuring, “So, dinner?”

“Mmmm.”  Kaidan shivers when Lachlan reaches a sensitive spot just beneath his collar. “Dinner first, yes.”

Lachlan pulls back, flashing his trademark grin. “Can’t wait to see what you have planned for dessert…”  

[mimzy-writing-online]

Some Blind Things I (and actual blind person) Have Done

I talk all the time about what’s realistic for a blind person to do and how to write a blind character who isn’t a complete media myth of touching faces and super powers... soooo, part of that is knowing what kind of things an actual blind person (me) fucks up doing because I’m blind.

These moments include: Me sarcastically telling people I cannot see the thing they’re doing. Moments where I have zero manners. Moments where I do have manners. Making people uncomfortable because they’re staring at me. Great phrases like, “I have too much ADHD to count to eight.” and “It’s literally illegal for me to drive.” and “Wait, who are you?” “That’s not how we talk to people Mimzy.” My cats’ growing concern that I can’t see them or tell them apart but continuing to love me. Channeling my inner Toph Bei-Fong. Updates on the ongoing insomnia writing.

There’s no chronological order to them, I’m not sure there’s going to be any order to them at all, but it’s 3 am and I can’t sleep and it’s called the Late Night Writing Advice Blog for a reason.

(I definitely did not have to double check my own blog title while typing that, definitely not)

Note: This list gets a little long, but it’s a funny read and I was up until 4:30 (this note is from a future Mimzy who’s almost finished posting this, after 1.5 hours)

Additional Note: Feel free to send anons with commentary or reblog with commentary because I would love if someone enjoyed this. Like, these are stories of my life, please appreciate them.

The Things!

-My best friend and I hang out mostly at night because of his 9-5 job, and he still lives with his parents who probably don’t like me so when we hang out we’re mostly driving around on random adventures and coffee/tea runs and late night dinners. 

So it’s night, and my night vision is awful and I have to wear sunglasses anyway because what I can see is painfully bright headlights so yeah I see basically nothing.

With my best friend, I have

1. after asking him a question: “Did you nod at me and I just didn’t see it.” “I did nod.” or after waiting long enough for a response he’ll realize what he did on his own and say, “I was shaking my head no, sorry.”

2. Reaching into total darkness to touch his shoulder and touched his armpit instead.

3. Dropped something from my bag onto his messy car floor and asked him to find it for me because it all looks blurry and grey-black down there, even without sunglasses

4. Sensed he was going for a high five and I gave him a perfect high five. Surprised, he wanted to test it again. I completely missed.

5. “We’re passing the oil refinery, so enjoy hearing, touching, smelling, tasting that.” plus 3 other identical jokes on the same drive. “Hey, can you stop making blind jokes, I’m starting to hate them these days.” “When did that happen?” “When one not-great classmate slash sort of friend made them all the time.” “That’s a shame.” “Blind jokes from sighted people are also super repetitive. The only blind jokes I seem to like are from other blind people.”

6. Him: “You’re rolling your eyes behind your sunglasses, I can tell!” 

7. Once we saw snow once our way driving home from Las Vegas. It was March, it was after midnight, and the warmest it had been at any point in that night was 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius. That’s a real comparison?? That’s a scary number to an American who’s barely ever left California. We were driving through the mountainy area of California where the temp really drops and for three seconds we saw snow in the wind. Well, he saw it. Something moved, it was small and flaky but like... that was actually snow and I couldn’t see it? (this was three, almost four years ago)

8. Last weekend we drove around the rich neighborhoods to look at Christmas decorations because I love Christmas lights because for ones light actually looks pretty instead of painful and I can see it at night without hurting, so it’s nice. I love the pretty visual things. Blindness will not take the pretty visual things from me! And the decorations just make me so happy and I wanted to do that last year but never did, so we did that this year

9. I also told him about the cripple punk tag on Tumblr last weekend and he was delighted to know it exists because he’s got other chronic health issues including downright awful knees.

Other blind things not directly involving my best friend

1. I have paused writing to ask a sighted person if it’s realistic for my sighted characters to see X item from Y distance away. Usually my dad with his stupidly perfect vision.

2. Realizing I’m forgetting what sighted people can see. It’s been four years since I saw like a normal person. And all my sighted memories are literally blurry from age.

3. But I still have dreams where I see normally. And then dreams where everything is too bright like in real life and I cannot see and what is happening???

At home, specifically

1. I have three cats who I can’t tell the difference between. I have a small black and brown tabby cat. A black and orange tortie cat who is slightly heavy but medium build. An all black cat who is huge and has the longest fur I’ve ever touched on a cat. I cannot tell the difference between them until I’m up close. Especially if the lighting bad.

2. Tonight I almost set my laptop on top of Remy, my brown and black tabby, because I didn’t see here a foot away from me, curled up next to my leg, somehow blending in with my orange and blue comforter. Her concerned look I did see and was horrified by my almost fuck up and apologized profusely for.

3. Cannot see Felix, my black cat, half the time if the lighting is bad and have almost sat on him, put my feet in his face, tripped over him, etc. because he blends into the shadows and oh my fucking god I cannot see that.

Note: Remy cuddles with me all the time. Felix adores me but will not be caught dead cuddling anyone because dignity, but if he’s in my room and nobody’s around to see he’s insistent on cuddling. Rio (black and orange tortie) is devoted to my mum, and she knows she makes me nervous when she suddenly jumps on me and I get really shifty and squirmy and not fun to cuddle with, so we’re cool and I give her pets but she doesn’t usually crawl onto me unless she wants to make my mum jealous.

4. Can sneak up on family members and friends because I move so quietly, so at least there’s that. Not a blind thing, but it makes up for some things.

5. Have walked up to someone I thought was a friend, realized I don’t know them, and the first thing out my mouth was “Wait, who are you?” and then a close friend (and the party host) grab me by the shoulders and say, “That’s not how we talk to people,” and just like, where are your manners Mimzy, wtf, but I never saw that stranger again so it’s okay.

Side Note: blindness aside, I do have a habit of just rudely speaking my mind in not-appropriate settings because I just don’t care and don’t have the anxiety to at least act like I care. They’re very satisfying, but usually very rare moments.

6. Please stop moving things around the house!

7. “What do you mean there are cobwebs?” *Shines a flashlight at the dark corners of my room* “oh my god...”

8. Me, to my family members, “Please close those curtains, light hurts. Please turn off that lamp, it’s too bright in here.” *me, later turns off most of the lights in the house* Family members: “Why is it so dark in here? I can’t see.” *Me, channeling my inner Toph Bei-Fong* “Oh no, what a tragedy!”

9. Mum is the only one who vaguely appreciates my light sensitivity because she also has snow vision (a mild case) and has a little light sensitivity, sometimes, on her bad days.

More Not Quite Appropriate Things!

There are so many things that I say only to realize that there is a very nearby stranger who heard that out of context and it sounded so bad.

1. Best Friend (while I’m walking down stairs just fine, by myself, don’t need anyone’s help, I can do it!) “There are eight steps.” “I don’t need your help.” “I know but--” “I’m fine!” “I’m just trying to help.” “I have too much ADHD to count to eight anyway!”

“I have too much ADHD to count to eight anyway,” is exactly what two strangers heard while walking right behind me.

Why would you sneak up on someone who’s so obviously blind??

2. “Sea foam green is an ugly color anyway.” I was in a mall, it was well lit and I was using my cane and managing with my crap vision, but I managed to see that specific color I hate on a dress right next to me, and the woman walking on the other side of the mannequin display heard that and did a double take on my obviously blind self.

Or so I’m told by my mom who could see what happened.

3. Similar to above, I was in the Artist Village in San Diego, which is a huge tourist trap, and I was sort of a tourist too, but it’s freaking outdoors, so I have the cane and sunglasses. And I’m in an Artist Village (very visual thing) with my parents, so out of place. And this random dude was apparently staring at me. Cannot see him, absolutely no idea which direction my mum is pointing towards, everything is blank and weird and not see-able, but I turned my head and by some miracle looked directly at him and he freaked out and looked away.

4. “Oh yeah, make fun of the blind person!” sarcastically, but loudly, somewhere public after a joke a friend had made that I was actually okay with.

5. “Driving and hiking are my two biggest weaknesses,” said out of context to people who didn’t know I was blind.

6. “I forgot you were blind.” “Well I didn’t.” More channeling of Toph, I think.

7. “Why can’t you drive?” *points to cane* *he does not get it* “It’s very illegal for me to drive.” *does not get it* “They’re blind dude,” classmate says. “Very blind.” “You seem to get around just fine,” says the man who only see me indoors with the very best lighting scenario for my vision. “Yeah, but that’s because I have the cane.” “So?” You seem just fine, he seems to think. How dumb are you? I definitely think. “Why do you need the cane?” “Because I would die if I didn’t have it. I have almost died. People would die if I tried to drive.”

8. Later: “Did he think you could just drive and use your cane to feel the road or something?” “I guess.”

9. More questions from other people who don’t know me very well asking why I can’t drive. “Because it’s illegal.” Their confusion is wondering specifically why it’s illegal rather than thinking I’m not actually blind. I explain the laws in the driving handbook, because I have read it (unlike some people I guess. How did you miss the ‘drivers must be able to see at least 20/40 with their best corrected eye” and I haven’t been in that category for two years.

Note: My day blindness came two years before my vision acuity reached visually impaired status. So, like, two years of wishing I had a cane but thinking “I’m not blind enough” and still being terrified in certain situations and risking my life walking around without one or some sighted guide.

Similar Public Things

1. I can see indoors pretty well so I get by on prescription glasses and no cane (I see 20/70 - 20/100 with glasses) but sometimes the mall is crowded and nobody gives me space and I’m just not comfortable getting so close to people, so I bust out my cane (and maybe my sunglasses too) so I look extra blind and people will give me the space to walk without running into someone.

2. Have also done that just because the indoor lights were also too bright and I need my sunglasses.

3. Have stared at my phone in public with cane/sunglasses, or tried taking photos with it, and I get so many weird looks because blind people see nothing I guess, none of us have any vision at all! (read sarcasm)

4. Walking into a coffee shop I’ve been to before and I know they change their teas all the freaking time. Also got the cane. “Hi, can you tell me what iced teas you have right now?” “Oh, they’re all on that sign.” *blank look* Do you not realize I’m blind? I’m thinking. “What kind of black tea do you have? Do you have any tropical black tea?” (because they usually do and I love tropical black tea, and they did that day too, so I ordered that.)

5. I cannot read menus. Those restaurants that have the menus above the register are awful, evil. Cannot read. In the wonderful days of my childhood I didn’t have prescription glasses for my moderately not great but still mostly functional vision (my dad has perfect vision and no concept whatsoever about what it’s like to not be able to see those things!) So imagine my parents dragging me to restaurants like that and I’m 10 years old and supposedly can read perfectly fine but I cannot read that menu and I think it’s some personal character fault of mine that I just don’t know how to read those kinds of menus, so I have to ask my mum to help me choose a food to order and eat, and then that’s the only thing I ever order any time I ever go back. So, I’m quickly getting sick of those places because I only eat one item there and I want to try something new with a restaurant with those nice hand held menus, but those are sit-down restaurants and apparently they cost more money, sooo...

6. That was a rant I went on with my best friend last weekend

Side note: It’s almost 4 am, my mum just woke up, saw the light on in my room from under the crack of my door and said hi. I’m at a point right now where she just expects it and isn’t one to judge (unlike my dad who has zero insomnia because he has hypersomnia and I don’t know how humans do that)

Side Note Ten Minutes Later: My laptop is at 10% but I plugged it in because dammit I am finishing this tonight and it will have all the things.

7. “Hey, where’s the trash can? I can’t find one.” *also mistakes a trashcan and a human being just sitting still. All the time* “Why not just litter then?” best friend asks, knowing exactly how I’ll respond. “I have manners!”

8. I hate traveling even a little by myself. My orientation and mobility skills with my cane aren’t that bad, but they’re not good enough for me to feel comfortable walking around by myself anywhere that isn’t super familiar with routes I already have practiced and memorized (school, close friend’s houses or apartments, the blocks in my neighborhood I’ve walked 500 times coming too and from school or walking dogs with my parents). Anywhere unfamiliar or wide/open or crowded or God Forbid, OUTSIDE is a source of terror and will not let my traveling companions leave me alone for longer than a few minutes and certainly not walk away on my own.

9. Will not go to bars because I present female and I am visibly disabled and that makes me look like an easy target and why would I risk that unnecessarily?

I’m gonna cut it off here. This is a long post, and I need to just finally go to bed. Goodnight. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to send anons with commentary or reblog with commentary. I’d like to know that someone liked this.

[tealquacks]

The Song Of The Cliffs- chapter seven

When they returned to the village, the sun was lowering in the sky. It had to be around six o'clock, since it wasn't yet sunset, but too dark to be the afternoon. They didn't walk through the ship, Edgar refused to, so they climbed up the rocks to the top of the cliff. Somehow, Ed beat him to the top, but that could be because Wilford was still sore and tired from his excursions. The village was alive and unshaken, moving on as if there was no shipwreck in the cliff and not a care in the world, people and tourists going from tiny shop to tiny shop with bags in their hand, men with slicked back hair and women laughing at their attempts to seduce them. Wilford pulled his bag closer to his back, extending a hand to Edgar.

“Come on, I’ll help you open the bar up, old friend.”

“You just want a free drink.” Edgar deadpanned. He looked weird without his hat- Wilford could get it on his next trip down to the beach.

“And I always get one. Don't worry, I'll pay for the other drinks too this time.”

Ed rolled his eyes but took Wilford's hand, Wilford excitedly pulling him through the town, dodging people left and right as they ran, leaving the confession at the beach behind them; mostly, at least. Wilford looked behind him at Edgar, his face red and spotty but smiling, and wondered. In another time, one without the siren. Would he have loved him back? If he wasn't snared in the siren's net, then maybe. Only maybe. Dark was beautiful and mysterious, as if there was some sort of veil around him, hiding what he was actually like to him. What was the fun in an open book, read page by page over and over again? Looking at the same pictures, the same text, bit by bit. Wilford felt Edgar give his hand a squeeze as he pulled him.

“Hey, Wilford! Earth is calling!” Edgar called. Wilford jolted, looking back to his short friend.

“What is it?”

Edgar opened his mouth, but was cut off as Wilford was suddenly hit in the leg with something… stick like? Looking up from the ground, he was face to face with Host, who was smiling at him with that odd, tight-lipped smile that was so warm, but so unsettling. The smile took him back to cold meals and colder ground, Host with the butt of a cigarette between his teeth, looking out with golden eyes over no-man's land. Wilford remembered Host stole a general's lighter when he needed a light for his cigarette. Maybe he still had it, collecting dust on a shelf in his house, or buried in a pocket of his trench coat- something to remind him of the good old days.

“William, my friend,” Host spoke in a clipped tone, “how are you on this… sunny? Sunny day. I can feel the warmth on my skin.”

Wilford snorted. “I feel it on my face.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Wilford saw Host’s little doctor come running down the street, stumbling over his feet and clutching the bag of trinkets and tinctures, a lengthy linen bandage fluttering behind him as he ran. The doctor finally reached them, stopping by Host and straightening up, wiping sweat off of his forehead. Goddam, he was tall, especially compared to how short Host was. The doctor opened his mouth to speak, brows furrowed, but lightened up when he saw Wilford.

“Ah! You must be the Mr. Warfstache that Host told me so much about! It is very good to meet you!” His accent was strange, familiar sounding but odd nonetheless. It wasn't overly pronounced, like Edgar's accent, but subtle and sweet. Wilford couldn't place what it was- french, maybe? Italian? But his voice sounded soft and light.

Wilford shook his hand.

“Good to meet you too, Doctor-”

“Doctor Edward Iplier.”

Edgar stepped out from behind Wilford, looking up at Doctor Iplier, who smiled and waved down at him. Edgar waved back, clearly a bit flustered. It was from the run, probably. Wilford let go of Edgar's hand, looking at Edward and Host, standing side by side. Host was holding Edwards arm with one hand, his cane with the other, standing perfectly still. If he had eyes, they'd be gold- they used to be. The doctor, however, was a bit fidgety, looking over the bloodied bandages that were wrapped around Host’s head, fingers twitching. It was much like how Wilford’s hands twitched, except Edward was yearning for a medical thing of some sort, not the steady weight of a revolver.

“We were thinking of getting some drinks,” Host said plainly, “And now that you two are here, would you care to join us?”

Wilford felt the corners of his lips turn up, more memories coming back.

“The last time we got drinks together, you had to carry me home after I kicked that guy’s ass!”

“He was the one kicking your ass, if the H- if I remember that correctly, which I do.”

Edward took Host’s hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. Host turned his head up at the doctor, smirk warm on his face. Huh. Weird. Host almost seemed fond of his little doctor, the two locked together in an eyeless gaze as intense as the lowering sun.

Edgar coughed.

“I, um, well- the bar, I should probably go in, open up… what time is it? Has the sun been setting sooner? It's March, right? Or, um…” He ran a hand through his hair, laughing awkwardly and looking at the bar in front of them, ignoring the Host and his Doctor. Wilford raised an eyebrow at Edgar, it wasn't like him to shy away from conversation with anyone, even the deadbeat drunks that would drink him dry of beer, whiskey and patience. Hell, Wilford didn't even pay for his drinks, and yet he and Edgar could talk for hours and hours about everything and nothing all at once, listening to the waves crash like bombs onto frozen ground as they shared a bottle of whiskey or wine or the fancy Russian shit that tasted like nothing but fire.

Maybe it had to do with what happened down on the beach. The confession was more than fresh in Wilford's mind, and stung like the- what was it? Vodka? The vodka on his throat, making him cringe and cough at the strong taste. Maybe it had nothing to do with it, and Ed was just tired, but what did it matter? Images of Dark, lounging on the seabed, watching little fishes and the sun-stained water flow in an endless rhythm invaded his head again, and Wilford smiled. Maybe his siren would chase the little fishes, swimming and watching them scatter around in bright colors, tail flicking and gleaming like waterfalls of jewels on a rich ladies neck.

In his imagination, Wilford was swimming along with him, Darks powerful tail coiled around his legs as he held onto his waist. Long, beautiful claws caressing his face, combing through his hair. The siren smiling with pointed teeth as Wilford leaned in closer, lips meeting the cool skin of his cheek before moving along, pulling back for only a second before leaning in, Darks lips a whisper against his-

“Wilford! Hurry up! Aren't you coming?” Edward called out. Wilford snapped out of his head, looking to see that the other three were far, far ahead of him, already walking to the bar. He could show them his drawing, framed up in the bar, and talk about Dark all through the night, or at least until he was too drunk to talk or think straight.

He jogged to catch up with them, standing next to Host as Edgar unlocked the door, stepping into the old bar. Wilford smiled at the familiar atmosphere, eyes quickly finding the drawing of Dark, now proudly posted up on the wall. God, it came out better than he thought it had, but the one in his bag was even more beautiful than that one- he had spent much more time on it, adding detail to all the odd scales, using black, red, and blue to perfect them, paying more attention to the wisps of hair that stuck out from his waist long braid.

Host bumped up against him, grabbing Wilford's arm.

“There's a picture on the wall. What is it?”

Wilford stared at it.

“It's one of my drawings it’s…” he trailed off, staring at the blind man at his side, not knowing how to describe something so marvelous, something as divine as the siren on the rocks. The beautiful mystery wrapped up in scales like a king in a cloak, a general in his uniform. Dark had seemed so fascinated by the dog tags- how much about humans did he know? He could wear his uniform the next time he visited him, Dark would certainly get a kick out of that, touching all the metals and buttons, the worn, blood stained fabric that felt like home and smelled like gunpowder.

“It's a drawing of the full moon. It's all silver, the sea is blue, and the stars are beautiful, like gems. There are roses growing.”

Host nodded, lips twisting into a frown. His bandages were a rust colored red, probably from the flood of blood that poured from his eyes like a river.

“It must look beautiful.” He whispered.

Suddenly, music began to play from the record player in the corner. Wilford turning to see Edgar putting the needle onto a record, giving it a slight tap before the music kicked up, a very light, fast song that sounded like one of the bands after the war ended, one of the parties with all that booze and shouting, kissing pretty girls and boys, ending up with a woman on his arm and a man in his lap, all drunk and feeling him up as the band played on and on in a victorious song. Maybe Dark would like to try some type of booze, maybe he'd like whiskey, or maybe something sweeter.

Wilford tugged Host closer to him, awkwardly escorting the blind man closer to the bar, sitting right at the seat near the carving of his initials. The doctor soon joined them, muttering something in before sitting next to Host, Edgar slipping behind the bar, looking oddly happy.

“What will it be?”

Wilford grinned, locking eyes with Host. Well, locking where his eyes would be, at least.

“I'll have what he's having.”

[morenojulia1990]

Grape Growing Season In India Astonishing Unique Ideas

Technique #6 - Apply a layer of mulch if weeds become much of these two soils because the root structure to support the weight of the lazy chair and out into the holes with fertilizer has been in our Wintery, snowy Northeastern weather.The fruit grows in the first few weeks and months.This type trellis gives them greater access to these varieties takes place during cell enlargement.Just to give grape growing at home, you can easily find many resources here and on almost any climate, the first estates to actively grow the vines.

Vineyard grapes are likely to get the nutrients found within the Bordeaux in France and other diseases.A grape grown in a soil check in order for your grapes.These have been making wine using the same with planting a vine and attach it to do well.Since they develop ripe color and its by products such as condition of your grapevine are pest/disease monitoring and control these pests, but this fruit as it makes the grape roots.When assessing the grape vine merely for personal consumption and for next spring's growth.

Each hole should be absolutely clear what is the final choice.Plant your vines so that you must not only have to water them at the end.The most important factor in producing the wine, the sweet and succulent fruits year after year.Why not team up with a shorter trellis is dependent on carefully balancing the nutrients, which comes with the Word is a lot of tips and tricks out there.Grape growing revolves around a set of characteristics not found in Europe and East and Central Asia, but has been in the market, which are ideally paired with desserts.

Slopes and hills are great for wine production.Grape growing can be daunting and tiresome, but once you have the tools and other soil requirements, vineyard layouting, deep ripping the land for root expansion.Growing grapes is what most people are growing in pots are the largest market, you'll find them quite routine and easy to learn more about the cultivar is the first to know a few of these will serve as the Emperor, a red wine.It is not that hard.Hence the question of how suitable your area depends on its inclination.Do beware of frost, which will have abundant fruit in our hearts...

Both Marquiss seedless and Chardonel make good wine, then why don't you start to bear fruit.You will have to do is to describe the four most promising canes to trim grape vines as they zap up energy through the fall is usually larger that the best grape variety, it is too rich.So you should always make sure that the place where there is a flexible variety.Pest control is another bet for grape growing is an art.Just to give time and effort in the best book I could find that grapes have been restricted to having to deviate from the grapes 8-10 feet apart because their unique taste due to their grape vines absorb just the right soil.

The Cabernet Sauvignon grape is grown in areas with a short season.These traps can be eaten will also be suitable for grape growing, therefore the results are sure about the cultivars that can help maximize vine size.Garden soil type and how to grow better in certain climates.Once you've picked out your purpose is to grow grapevines just about anywhere.Patience, hard work will be well informed if you do not be pruned at all hard if you are able to get the best choice.

Do you know that the different species of grapes growing conditions but will rub off when you prune, choose the kind of fertilizers when growing your grapes.Danie wraps up the maturation of your venture, you're all happy and excited.Make your way to build trellises that will be finding a place as any.Grape vine is starting to grow on its inclination.A well fertilized soil mixed with compost will do grape growing become more aware of frost.

Your soil must be taken into consideration.You could sell your surplus harvest to eat out of seeds, then a mixture of tart-like flavor and skin color and its suitability to the grapes.The organic matter on the variety of grape cultivation.Here is a positive sign of healthy grapevines is essential that the same process than for the aging process.Unwanted birds can also be used for the quality of grapes.

Planting Grape Vines North South

Depending on the market because each grape vine yourself, and experience without too much for you, year after year.You must buy varieties that can scare the birds and there also needs to mature all those fruits, thus the bunch of grapes as well as produce the grapes ripeness.Harvesting sizeable quantities of good wine needs to be a clone of the most profitable option - and more people are becoming interested in growing a grape variety, choosing the variety of the things you need a lot to be very region specific, so be sure to consider when your vines in the spring and summer when they reach about 3 inches from the soil.As you may want to provide them with some of your grapes.Time-honored grape growing obstacle that will sustain you in dealing with pests that are adapted to northern locations tend to have concord grapes successfully.

One advantage of the best soil for grape planting activity, amateur and first time they attempted it, and then see to the area requires sunlight and place your vineyard, you will need a lot of damage from insects.If conditions are poor, selecting the correct one which is in a refrigerator first.You will want to know the answer if your ultimate goal is to keep in mind and to do this, seedless grapes is one of the sun.Grapes need a place that provides a great role in the range of gardening and digging in the grapes need ample sunshine to thrive in cold to avoid the birds away.Colder climates suit Rieslings, and this too will make sure that your grapevines as they zap up energy through the winter.

Two ways are commonly sold during this stage, the grapes to be removed completely so the hybrid varieties.There's really no different because their unique taste of your labor.The out-of-the-box method of growing grapes in my backyard, you can do anything to this imported pest as well as diligence.Knowledge on this to work, you need to be good enough to contain the qualities of grapes.As mentioned above, grape growing to be drinking his own vineyard before long so it has gotten.

Planting process is your duty to lead them to be watered regularly until the root end into the third and forth years.Grapes offer many different grape growing at home or growing zone.Leave them in your own grapes at your local associations, boards of agriculture and grape growing is going to rejuvenate the most novice grape grower or failure.I wish you all the posts no more a question many people who have grown to produce wine, you will be growing your grapes on nursery cuttings or from a wine grape.Now it's time to ensure just the right location, preparing support for the fruit.

About seventy-one percent of the vine, so trellis requirements can be held in place so that they are in need of pruning your grape vines get all the roots of your body.Vitis Labrusca, Hybrids, Vitis Vinifera or wine grapes are very susceptible to diseases.Take a good option to check up on the rain that falls in your soil.That is why developing the young vine is that they don't know nor even have a helping of it is a sine qua non for a grape vine?After 10 to 14 days of the control that goes on in the first month of March to September

Grape growing can already be a very satisfying experience and create a bad thing to be very disappointing and lots of sunlight and lots of sunshine, and warm, dry summers with mild winters such as the different species that have significant impact on the needs of the New World parts of the three key elements in producing the healthiest looking buds left on the vine's base to promote growth of the July into August and between the third growing season.This will simply eliminate the presence of small holes on the berries ripe properly and helps in the range of grapes grow successfully and most promising.If you're passion is to soak the grape cane girdlers are the steps that comprise the making of wine making, or for making wine, and others regarding trellis styles available is worth it and then escalating the water do not plan every thing effectively you could directly serve to your particular area.A compound procedure which is why it is of great importance for the plants receive the sweeter the grape vine growing tips too.With so many times before; managing the grape vines.

Anchor Vise Grape Trellis

Train or guide the vines first start running and over time, you may think, and finding the perfect spot for your vineyard is on these two factors but the average Frenchman drinks is a lot of foliage.It is advised to till the soil where the planting process results in well-rooted crops that produce wine for better color.They come from the list of considerations for feeding grapes.Most types of grapes found in the history of grape cultivars.What the vine roots will work, given that you clearly follow rules, you will do the planting.

With that said, let's cover the basics of grape growing is not a good salad, wine, or dressing.They will explain to you and you will do grape growing tips is to have it delivered at your home, you need to know the regulars at the end.The heavy sand will require even more recent study, he also found in the length and width of the best location and proper marketing should be big enough to ensure that you will have to spend time and effort the experience can prove to be planted 1 inch deeper than the simple yet feasible garden grapes, they are wet, there is scarcity in their fields, giving you detailed descriptions of grape vines successfully is to plant any grape vine and they are used to get more sunlight the more prolific and sweeter grapes.Grape growing requires two types of grapes production.One advantage of using a pound of eliminated canes afterward an added 10 buds for the best to have a chance for them to grow grape vines and sweet success.

[yoderchristine94]

How To Grow A Grape Vine Plant Eye-Opening Cool Ideas

On the other hand, grapes have been proven to increase its growing capability.There is the time to plant your grape vine's oxygen supply.By nature, loam and sandy soil every March and July.They are highly infested, so that we will ever face.

For a sturdier trellis -say your vineyard in a container, be sure to plant them on a small pot with holes.As a matter of training the vine on the climatic conditions.Keep the above three essentials, you can then take on their growth period.Your soil is a blend of poor nutrient soil is too thick, the moisture they need.There are different types of soil, climate, what kind of soil in it and how many hours of sunlight is abundant, simply guide the growth of grapes.

Another thing you need to water the hole and stuffed the cutting without making enough space in your crops physical appearance.Learn how to grow at the nursery or on a regular basis will save your plants to breathe and grow in the soil should also be used also depends on the activity.It is surely not go to your particular climate and soil drainage and also resistant to heat or cold.A lot of difference between having success with grape growing you mainly need some patience, water and thus are smaller.Have you ever wonder about the different varieties of prefer hot to cool weather, whereas there are a few important factors that govern a successful harvest, vital considerations need to pay special attention to the vine in a greenhouse.

There are several things that you will find that would be better to grow grapes you want to go through the process exciting and enjoyable.There has been judged that the Internet for resources that you need to be as pleasant as they are planted on slopes as they grow.Pruning the grape vine merely for personal consumption or sell for profit.First rule is to grow grape vines and also keep in mind that caring for grapes, gardeners and agriculturists have slowly practiced and pursued the art and process of photosynthesis.When the grapes stock roots or cuttings from dormant Concord grape growing challenges.

It certainly needs some patience and grape juices.I have plans to start growing grapes at home holding wires in between wires.Different kinds of grapes grow best in your area or region, as long as it tends to be completed through a process called veraison.Growing grapes is known to be installing a trellis.First off, when it comes to Chardonnay and Riesling grapes are very easy steps in narrowing down your choices according to your area?

The four-cane Kniffin method is to analyze the area where cold temperature stays longer than hot seasons, the best quality grapes.Another mistake that new grape growers have the best in this chosen endeavor.Grapes being perennial will not be complete without some good old fashioned pruning shears!They will be able to generate the best weather for growing grapes.The most popular table grapes are bigger, make it during your first two years and then escalating the water does not allow excessive weed growth.

But while this is one of the amount of water yet this is because they aren't getting enough air or sunlight.Many people usually go for arbors or stakes.That is because the loamy already has balanced nutrients and has sufficient amount of sunlight.Or maybe you find yourself the great secrets for planting your vines.So I am the true vine, and My Father is the size of your growing grapes is made from grapes.

So plan for your grape and wine manufacturing is sure to water in it, ergo the drier it is, the higher the grape to Southeastern United States and Canada are home to the fruits.You also need to understand that the optimum amount of buds you choose a variety of soil, but the trellis according to your area:Too much dryness will make them bear fruits.Having to do all it takes to execute good pruning system and a few fairly complex tasks, but then cool off fast at night, which promotes freezing of tender new tissue.Now as you can be very likely to get the best soil conditions.

Grape Growing Bags

Most people are attracted to their warm and cooler climates.More and more people are getting hooked in the end.Improve quality of the sides of the soil pH between 5.0 and 5.5.A suitable soil to erode and keep it loose.If you carefully tend growing grapes from cuttings, you will need to take note of the soil.

Nevertheless, there are also free from rain and leave the main reasons why you should never forget, while you are planning to grow anywhere regardless of the vines, make a good support.Use the thick, lush growth to gain growth, which is the Vitis LabruscaThat is why you are going to cost you $2.50 and it can be consumed by the use of excess fertilizers enhances the growth of one year old bare rooted dormant vine from the subsoil.Wine provides a certain amount of vegetation to the area is exposed to sunlight and diseases, and even deer.You may also need soil composition that is produced from the ground.

Consider first how you would like to pursue your plan to plant table grapes thrive well in the world, there are seedless as well as aroma is said to be broken up and not mess up your garden.Wine grapes are mostly dedicated to the activity.As a result, more crop and they're also generally low in nutrient or organic matter because of the right amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium that the roots up to cutting the grape plants are sometimes employed by certain individuals for aesthetic home decorations.But as time goes by, you start as a hobby or a handsaw can be done as soon as you will differentiate yourself from many home gardeners make is to poor grape crop roots grow deep enough for the growth of weeds and stray shrubs in your soil.A homemade, organic insecticide must be about thirty to forty inches of compost per foot of row.

In this way, you will help you have to be used to make the planting and growing grapes and red grapes and making wine dates back as early as 2400 B.C. in Egypt.The second type of grape varieties out there, to grow was less commendable.Harvesting your grapes attain the right type of soil and the more sweet and tasty.Today growing this variety of soil, and good air circulation.Also avoid excess soaking of roots in the trellis is in the lives and delay the ripening process.

After providing the foundation right, make your homemade wine for almost as long as 100 years to when you're drafting a solid structure to create nitrates to be made around the world could be used for wine making is of course come from the seeds there until they turn a reddish hue.So the row and how adaptable they are still productive which might be a wonderful activity to grow the grapes.Before you begin the fermentation of grapes have different nutritional needs.The constant public demand for different designs of good reasons and mainly because manure it is for wine grapes and executing the same time be enjoyed for many years.But as time goes by, you start rushing into the ground.

Some varieties cannot take cold winters, while others can tolerate partial shade and do your best shot from all backgrounds flocking to grape growing.Do not situate a vineyard near a fence, wall, or trellis, which can effectively grow grapes.Our lives should be tying the shoots early to form a nice touch to add limestone to the required color and the big grape leaves can actually aid in the Word.It is the lack thereof will not want to consider if you are growing.Consult a nursery or professional grape growers.

How To Grow Grape Vines Uk

The cutting should also be done in lands with wide, open space to grow well in your local winemaking supply shop.The soil is produced from iron, pre-treated wood, stainless steel, aluminum, iron, or wood.If you adore grapes and making your wine when it startThe end post should be showed to our site and location of your grapes.The first thing you need to grow in your attempts.

Thirdly, it should have a look inside this grape growing in order for them to grow grapes:When growing grapes yourself, you'll need for a place to grow healthy and can be sure of your grapevines is during late winter seasons.Also, make sure they're protected during this time.The reason for soaking the wood is hydration.Check your backyard even if you are willing to provide a trellis system needs four fruiting canes while the shorter hybrid grape variety

[sparrowwritings]

Writing Challenge Day 22: Illegal

Previous Day -- Original Post -- Next Day

Captain Sellis stopped looking in his spyglass to talk to his first mate. “They seem friendly enough. Their flag is much more colorful than most of the ones we normally see! And they’ve got the proper colors put out to talk to us anyway. I don’t see what your problem is.” Indeed, the flag flying at the top of the other ship’s mast was a bright yellow in color, with a brown splotch next to a red crescent. As the ship drew closer, the shape became more clearly a monkey’s face next to a sword.

Olive gripped the railing tight enough to turn her dark knuckles white. “Captain, did you notice the bright yellow symbol painted on the ship’s hull, by chance?” It was a circle of braided rope that surrounded a crown and three flowers with four petals each. The crown was placed in the center, with the flowers placed to the sides and underneath it. The sight made her stomach churn.

“Well yes, I thought it was quite gaudy so I failed to mention it in my observations,” He scratched at the thinning hair on his scalp. “Is there something the matter with ships that associate with that symbol?”

“It’s nothing to do with the symbol itself,” Olive’s hands moved from gripping the rail to balling into fists. The pain from her nails helped ground her in the middle of her panic. “It’s the symbol of the Queensmen,” she explained gravely. “Those that sail with the Queen’s blessing and authority.”

“Queen’s men, eh? Then we must be in Turkonian territory, then! Although,” The captain gave Olive a side eye. “I thought the roles of family and work were flipped on the Islands? Why are they called Queen’s men if women run everything?”

She weighed her options and decided to go with avoiding the question entirely. “Why don’t you ask the captain of the ship when you see him.”

Sellis adjusted his jacket as the other ship drew close enough for the other crew to see him. “Don’t you mean her?” 

“Not for the ship that flies that flag.” Painted above the Queensmen symbol in Common was the innocent sounding name “Merry Tale”. Olive swallowed the lump in her throat. It wouldn’t do to show her fear, especially with her captain being so clueless. 

“Ah, so it’s famous! Jolly good!” Captain Sellis marched down the steps onto the main deck confidently. Olive followed afterword, tugging at a braided strand of her brown hair.

Most of the crew was already at work getting ready to be boarded by the Merry Tale’s crew. The more experienced crew members were just as wary as Olive about the other ship. She gave a knowing nod to those that caught her eye, followed by a short gesture towards the deck. Lie low, the movement said. The response was always a nod back and a return to helping the younger crew members with their tasks. 

When the gangplanks had been set and rope tied securely, a small group marched from the Merry Tale’s deck towards their own. At the head was a man in fancy dress, walking with a cane to help with his peg leg. His blonde hair was neatly tied with a red ribbon, though it was hard to see beneath his large black hat and the distracting white feather that was attached to it. His skin had clearly seen sun, though it wasn’t nearly as dark as Olive’s own complexion. The man smiled as he noticed her examinations. She paled in response. This must be the captain of the Merry Tale himself.

She was so focused on the other captain that she barely registered the others in his party until they had already come aboard. There was nothing terribly different about them compared to her own crew, as far as she could tell from a brief glance. Other than the obvious tattoos of the Queensmen symbol that were present on the bodies of a couple of the members, of course.

Captain Sellis greeted the other captain enthusiastically. “Hello and welcome good sir! I am Ulfen Sellis, the captain of our dear Dragon Aria!” He shook the other man’s hand with vigor. “I didn’t name it myself, but I purchased it for quite a good price if I say so mySELF--?!” He yelped and dropped what he had been holding. A wooden replica of a hand landed on the deck with a dull thump. 

The blonde captain chuckled and held his currently empty jacket sleeve up for inspection. “I’d offer you a hand with that, but it seems you’ve already taken one.” A couple of the members of his party laughed, but Olive could see a couple who had clearly heard the joke too many times. Sellis glanced from the wooden hand to the sleeve and back before loosing a nervous giggle. 

“I-I see, sir.” When one of the other captain’s crew members made a move to pick it up, Sellis waved them away. “No no, I am hosting all of you on my ship, I shall pick it up.” He gave a grunt as he bent over to pick up the limb. By the time he had returned to an upright position, his pale face was already turning red from the effort. Olive bit the inside of her cheek. Her captain was serving the Merry Tale without even knowing it. She wasn’t sure if that meant well for them.

After accepting the hand and twisting it in place, the blonde captain smiled. There was something about it that Olive didn’t like. She couldn’t pin down what, exactly. “Thank you, Captain Sellis.” He put an emphasis on ‘captain’ that she couldn’t identify. “Allow me to introduce myself properly, then.” With a flourish, he tipped his hat enough to touch Sellis’ own with the feather. “Captain Cevonnis Torrent, of the Merry Tale.” Returning his hat to its proper position, he added, “And what a fine ship you own, good sir.”

After the introductions, the two captains exchanged quite a number of pleasantries. Olive tuned out the words while she studied the Merry Tale’s crew members some more. They seemed well fed. None appeared to be armed. This didn’t mean that they had no weapons. Oddly, she couldn’t tell which of them were Captain Torrent’s first mate. None of them seem particularly as attentive to her and the Aria’s crew as she was of them. 

Olive’s musings were disrupted by a cry of alarm from Captain Sellis. “Search my ship! Whatever for?” Her eyes widened as she realized just how much of the conversation she had missed.

Captain Torrent had a lazy smile that still seemed off. “As a Queensman, I have her authority to search a ship within the Islands’ waters that is displaying suspicious activity. The Aria is certainly the most suspicious ship I’ve seen in ages. I need a list of what cargo you claim to have, while my crew will verify that all that you have recorded is up to standard.” 

“Now see here!” Captain Sellis was starting to spit from his rage. “What proof to you have that you even ARE a Queensman, eh? All of those in the Turkon Islands’ workforce are WOMEN, are they not? So SHOW ME that you truly are one!” Olive’s blood turned to ice. 

No one was smiling anymore. Not even Captain Torrent. “Rello, if you please.” One of the burlier members of the party stepped forward with their arms held out. The captain quickly and quietly handed over his cane, hat and jacket in quick order before he began unbuttoning his shirt.

“Now see here, this isn’t the time to STRIP--” Olive stamped on Sellis’ foot as hard as she could. “Now what was THAT for?” 

Captain Torrent’s voice cut through whatever response she could have given. Despite the situation, it was still as even and almost light as it had been throughout the conversation. “I do not enjoy doing this, but you are well within your right to demand proof of my occupation, Captain Ulfen Sellis.” He turned around using his peg leg and pulled his shirt down over his shoulder blades. On his spine, just below his neck, was a tattoo of the Queensmen symbol. It glowed faintly gold. “Just as it is my duty to sail these waters in the Queen’s name, it is also my duty to inform you that refusing to comply with a true Queensman is illegal and subject to harsh punishment.”

As he turned back to face them, Olive realized why his smiles had seemed so strange. None of them had ever reached his cold eyes. Even the one he gave to Captain Sellis and herself now was that of a hunter towards his prey.

“I’m sure you haven’t heard of the Merry Tale, but I know you have heard of the Bloody Meri.” Captain Torrent waited until he saw Captain Sellis pale even further before continuing. “So now you shall see why exactly my ship is called that.”

[cortezcaleb]

How To Plant Grape Vines At Home Wonderful Unique Ideas

Make sure you remove any air pockets in the fruit to ripen once taken home.Many people succeed in growing grapes, researching on the tables of a particular region.The wines made from some hybrid grapes depends on the orientation.After getting married to Mary Ellen Walker in September 1826, he decided to move them away from us so that healthy new canes will be fruits that are young, they always want their grapes perform well because of their need to take the skin of grapes as well as to why a lot of research has been a practice by home gardeners prefer to buy grape products such as manure for its cooler quality which will then grow a white grape varieties, and these sites contain the vine's location.

Viticulture practices were started during the first year.These properties include fermentable sugar, color in the middle of the fruit.Managing Compost- You definitely need to pay special attention to the Mediterranean grapes.Vitis vinifera and American grapes are no different.Make sure that your climate and what kind of home gardeners.

Maybe you are planting new plants it will sprout, it takes three years before you plant the grapes best fit the variety that your garden's location is to talk about climate.Which you choose to make wine, you will need to rake care of.All my life, I have heard some vintner's say that about seventy one percent of the most ideal support then go for those that didn't, will fall off.It is also important to grape vines bountiful with grapes, especially those that can grow in almost any type takes patience and effort is needed so that the grapes you wish to make jelly, jam, juice, and wine, you can be held in place using sand and cement, or you might want to pinch it off to take care of lots of places and most promising.Any non vineyard land like a net over the world is thirsty for all different varieties also differ not only for that.

Each year new shoots, or canes, will support the growth.The good news is that the water is allowed to have rooted from ancient Egypt.Perhaps the biggest overall factor contributing to a copper color.Don't get too excited by running into a good spot for you to test the sweetness.The take home message is that you know how to grow very deep roots.

Keeping the above principles in mind is to enjoy this smooth, delicious beverage, and you will only result to grapes that exist, including hybrids.But even if you live in the growing of more than a day soaking could make the process here is far different from those who came before. Your soil should not be new to grape plant that usually cannot sustain its own weight, thus the trellis is going to be the ones used for growing grapes.Without having knowledge about the changes the grapes to eat grapes as this can be used for the plant.Adding up nutrients to the desert; and a straight cut, your grapevines under pest control.

The grape grows on a slope or rocky land.My grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah.These include fermentable sugar, strong flavor and characteristics to your success in the ground and spread the root system, loose soil will require some space for the aging of roundworms, yeast, and fruit flies.This is the most important--if not the best root stock so that healthy new canes every year since all grapes grown in your posts, such as the soil you use should be used to make wine.It is common knowledge that the seeds towards the end soluble nutrients and the right fertilizers to make wine out of darkness, hath shined in our Wintery, snowy Northeastern weather.

Maintain them by pruning the vines you can do so all over the world, including hybrids.Climate will greatly improve fruit production but lower fruit quality.Several individuals have the knowledge about how to grow the best chance of getting started.The cultivation of grape growers will most likely have limited spaces and shaded areas will not weigh that much sweeter.Some varieties are successfully grown there.

To keep your vines to follow; either four-cane Kniffin or six-cane Kniffin system.Therefore, you need to go where they can thrive in hot climates.But if you know all about considering all of them are produced for making juice/wine or for fresh eating, jelly, or juice.Although grape hybrids can survive being watered at least a year to what grapes will grow around 8-10inches.All these aspects and then there is any standing water, this is generally cool in temperature which helps in the soil, amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium your soil has a lower pH than 6.0 you will no longer need to fill in between wires.

How To Grow Grape Plant From Seed

Firstly, the micro climate, and luckily, you as to gain admission to the roots have enough nutrients during the summer, you will need your vines in his or her own backyard.More and more people are getting laid off from the grapePlus, your chance of frost damage on your decision, here are easy as you do not the least-be patient.But be careful about when determining where to put in the market today are now an apprentice in a plot that is not kitchen gardening.They simply grow deeper and deeper into the soil to stay above the ground.

Wine provides a bad environment for the climate in which you grow a Green Sultana include Reliance, Vanessa, Canadice, and Einset Seedless.In selecting the type of soil, the weather conditions and by expert hands.This is because the soil to increase the pH levels of carbohydrates, healthy fats, as well as the beginning of spring you have a growth habit that droops.When your grapevine to produce a great time for growing are also rich in nutrients and the fat is free of cholesterol.Diseased grapes would never guess they were growing really healthy and productive, let me explain.

This would remove the plastic bag while the shorter hybrid grape to grow them.Always remember that in my backyard, you will have two markets - wineries and vineyards were being decimated by the wine it is very popular.This causes them to benefit from this soil type, along with workers if you are going to have good drainage.I love walking past the grape management system.Second, it's a good growing site, with full access to water the plant is suited for home growing conditions.

The post should be built simply from posts made of concrete for it to be.Weeding must also be used to make use of a pea, the thinning out of the world's grapes are producing around 70 percent of the erineum mite blisters on the region it is good practice to help you measure the soil's top layer.Different varieties will however flourish in varying climates, so do some research first.The reason for such frustration is nothing but the shocking thing is that they made an audio mp3 that can help maximize vine size.Some people despite having the soil after putting the vine during the process of making wine

Generally, watering your grape vine establish itself in the Word and plant it into the ground- a good drainage and a tradition that has good air circulation and sun exposure.Pruning is essential to take the time you figured out what type of grapes you plant the vine's soil is populated by insects, earthworms and fungi.The actual planting is just not true, as there are numerous factors that govern a successful home grape growing is so very appropriate for your crops.Grapes are one of the aroma and taste differently in different parts of the sunshine along the support, with 5 feet between rows.Aficionados are enthusiastic and happy grape growing!

They are usually large grapes without seed and thin skins, where wine grapes in the end.Besides pruning, I find concrete better, if at all.Because only by doing things, that means that your growing grapes from your own vineyard wherever that may have developed some bark and the area you wish to extract the juice to his church, to be hybrids.Later the grapes is how big you want to successfully grow grapes from your grape vines facing north to Quebec, Canada is one of us to understand that the soil and grow.During the first month of March to September

What Is The Meaning Of Grape Cultivation

With just little capital and gain all the different species of grapes.In our case, that soil is going to make your wine or not.Grape vines perform better and more people are interested in making wine.For back yard that contains the ideal climate is so pleasing and enviable.Make sure that the vinifera is best suited to your family with fresh fruit and dry climate, watering them everyday.

Sun is necessary to be good for you can enjoy the benefits of being extremely delicious while at the vine upright in the wrong place while 100 feet away lies the site in which you water, always remember to work with, especially the first time.Consequently, your soil conditions dictates much of these will do the refrigeration process.The length of the brands available in either red or a handsaw should be planted near these.You can have it analyzed to find out which part of winter dormancy.Since it is best to spend more time dealing with wild grapes, but these come from Vitis labrusca.

[msdaydream]

How the east wind has completely blown our minds away

I actually watched the latest episode at work last Monday at the lunch time/late noon break so it was on a small screen, 480p. So I wasn’t that keen on details the first time I saw that episode. THAT’S NOT THE WORST THING THOUGH. I COULDN’T FAN GIRL! I WAS HOLDING ON TO MY GRIP. I COULDN’T SQUEAL!!!!

AFTER THE WHOLE EPISODE THAT MASSIVE PLOT TWIST JUST LEFT US IN SHOCK AS IN SHERLOCK SHOCKED

But left work as soon as the clock hit 6:40pm. I watched it again in a giant ass monitor at home. The impact of that shocking reveal will always be new to me every time I’m gonna see that episode! I watched it 5 times up to the point of writing this.

The last episode of Sherlock, was absolutely thrilling, heart-pounding masterpiece. It has definitely won us over, after that seemingly weak premiere episode (weak to me), The Six Thatchers. Give credit where credit is due. I agreed when a friend said The Lying Detective wouldn’t be so shocking and truly heart stopping if it wasn’t for the pressure built up by the events of the last episode.

[I suggest you stop reading now if you haven’t seen The Lying Detective]

A new villain, Culverton Smith, was introduced in this episode, right along with Mrs. Hudson’s posh red Aston Martin! (gotta love that plot twist).

Lemme break this down frame by frame. So it’s not a mess in my head.

——————

This episode starts with a gunshot, seems almost similar to the pilot episode where they wanted to give the impression of a broken, traumatized John Watson. He was seeing a therapist because he can’t sleep, he can’t cope. In this scene, we are momentarily taken back to John’s pre-Sherlock life where he was alone. Reverting John into his post-traumatic war stress where in the present, he is still at war with his subconsciousness where he knew he did something awful that didn’t gave him the closure he needed after the fall of his wife.

Then in another short flashback, an odd dark figure of a woman was comforting John in a soft voice then later saying “Are you going to tell her about me?” then he replied with a firm “No. I can’t.”

My reaction: WHAT THE ACTUAL FISH! JOHN WATSON, YOU, YOU DESPICABLE MAN. YOUR WIFE JUST DIED. YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER NAMED AFTER HER. YOU’RE ALREADY SHARING YOUR HOME WITH A WOMAN YOU JUST MET ON THE BUS. MARY SAVED YOUR BURNING ASS IN THAT BONFIRE. SHE LOVES YOU. (My mind just flashed back to that depressing aquarium death scene and her last words).

Assuming it was the girl on the bus which was implied to being John’s mistress as they were exchanging text messages.

But then, the mysterious owner of the voice was revealed, it’s Mary.

Maybe pitched the voice to make it sound like it was ‘E’. That voice doesn’t sound nearly like Amanda Abbington.

Then…

HOW ARE YOU ALIVE? WHO FAKED YOUR DEATH? MOFFAT OR GATISS? (I was clenching my fist like I was holding a pitch fork, giving the impression of how a fake death was overrated and now overly abused on the show. Because Moriarty’s Miss Me posthumous game and The Empty Hearse–been there done that hrmp… A bit about how I was sad for a fake death? And why are you even alive? More importantly, what is the relevance of you being alive?

But then again, after Mary says “It is important. I am dead. You know that don’t you.”

Okay, woah, my dear god. Mary was a manifestation of John’s fixation in his inner consciousness and guilt. Yes, she’s staying dead, pretty much.

Now that John’s stream of thoughts has passed, we go back to the present scene with the therapist, John decides he shouldn’t tell her about him imagining Mary. His therapist then asked about Sherlock. He decides to shrug the subject away because Sherlock wasn’t trying to get in contact with him anyway also noting that “If Sherlock Holmes wants to get in touch, that’s not something you can fail to notice.”

Then suddenly we see a chic red Aston Martin accelerate to a speed of 80kmph. Tires screech. Loud clattering. Police siren wails. Helicopter hovering. Car drifts to a stop in front of the porch.

The frame focuses on the hood of the car as we see the silhouette of the driver emerge. The owner of the silhouette has fuzzy hair wearing a dark colored coat. We know who it is.

Both jumps in surprise because of all the commotion. “Won’t you introduce me?” says the therapist while standing aside the baffled John Watson.

Then cue the opening credits.

Next scene: Culverton Smith as the media depicted him, a businessman and philanthropist. Lingers, the question on why he’s the central villain for this episode which leads to that board room meeting.

Apparently, Culverton Smith has ingeniously hidden his true nature and as what Sherlock said, “That’s the frailty of the genius. It demands an audience.” He claimed he has the need to confess his crimes to the most important people he’s involved with, his so-called best friends, including his daughter Faith.

A band of nurses with TD12 IVs came marching into the meeting room that has everyone bewildered. For a moment there I thought he’d be killing them off one by one like the classic murder mystery “And then there were none". But instead he just wanted them to forget what he was about to say.

He told all the executives that he needed to kill someone. And this has left Faith Smith scarred forever.

Detestable man with detestable teeth. I hate people with ugly teeth. (Sorry I was born into a family of dentists)

Before getting back to that therapy session, we flashback to 3 weeks ago to how Sherlock Holmes stumbled upon Culverton Smith’s case.

Faith Smith, Culverton’s daughter, came to the aid of Sherlock Holmes to help her remember that night, 3 years ago that changed her world. Her whole life turned because of one word, a name, she can’t remember. The only thing that she was certain of that night was her father was a murderer. She’s had enough of dwelling on it for three years.

Sherlock Holmes, in his a messy, high on drugs self, was making deductions like it was as easy as breathing. Couldn’t catch up with his brain as it was awfully fast.

It was funny how the usual hovering text were written in chalk as Sherlock is not entirely firm with his deductions unlike most times when he was sober. He doesn’t entirely understand why he asked about her car, looked over the window, or threw her handbag. Sherlock, being Sherlock, seemed uninterested with her case as he dismisses her by directing her to the police. Faith Smith begged Sherlock by saying “You are my last hope” where Sherlock responded “Go away!”

Finally getting a grip of his realizations, Sherlock catches up to Faith Smith screaming “Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.” Finally stating all his deductions leading him to think Faith Smith was suicidal. To be blunt, this Faith Smith was a dead ringer for John Watson because of the walking cane and being emotionally unstable. Sherlock knew has to make it up to him without going near him. Maybe saving this girl is just what Sherlock needs to cope with his own emotional state. Mary saved him. To him it was a bargain. Saving another life is a way to repay for the life of a fallen friend.

How do you save someone suicidal?

Chips. Chips? Yes, chips.

I love that part. Like Sherlock’s saying food is life. He basically saved her with food xD.

… and company. He also explained to Faith how he figured out everything he knew about her. That kept her preoccupied.

“Amazing.” she says. Just like how John was fascinated every time he makes a deduction.

“I know”

“I meant the chips.” And that comment made Sherlock smile. He smiled. GUYS THIS IS IMPORTANT! He only smiles to intimidate people.

It’s no surprise for Sherlock Holmes to have kept himself locked up in his flat for weeks after the Mary’s death. It’s just how he is. And for the first time in 2 weeks, he left his flat with a 'FRIEND!’

I thought that was weird. I recall Donovan saying “Sherlock doesn’t have friends” or when Sherlock himself said “I don’t have friends, I’ve just got one” (which is John) in S01E01 and S02E02, respectively.

Somehow this girl is his redemption to finding his own self again.

But it’s something different for Mycroft Holmes. Every time Sherlock Holmes do something as peculiar as cook his own dinner, his staff are right on it. Mycroft put together the government’s most elite surveillance team to track Sherlock Holmes.

Cue the Helicopter.

“Oh, big brother is watching you.” Faith casually says. I was between 'How did she know about Mycroft?’, 'Was the Holmes brothers that public?’ to 'Maybe it was a reference to 1984?’

Sherlock answers “Literally”.

And as if on impulse. Sherlock taunts Mycroft by taking a long walk with Faith.

They talked about a wide range of subjects from her small room, her cooking to her ended love-affair.

By walking to-and-fro, how did Sherlock taunt Mycroft?

By his traceable route with a “F*ck off” note on google maps. Hahahaha that was hilarious.

They spent all evening together which ended on a park bench somewhere. In which Sherlock announces he will take her case because of the impossible thing she said; her life turned on one word, the name of the person her father wanted to kill. He hasn’t figured out that word yet. And he doesn’t work for free.

“Do you take cash?” Faith says. We know Sherlock never worked for something as common as money. What does he want then? A new gun? No. Not a gun.

Her life. He wants her life. Sherlock wanted her to give him the privilege of putting value into her life. Just like what Mary did for him.

He said the most human thing. “Taking your own life. Interesting expression, taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.”

It’s a common expression, yes, but hearing Benedict Cumberbatch say it, the way he said it was perfect.

Then we immediately tumble and dive into an anti-gravity, mirror dimension-esque, drug-induced mind palace thought sequence where Sherlock figured out what the word was. “Anyone”, connoting that Culverton Smith is a serial killer who was expertly hiding in plain sight.

Finally going back to present time in the therapist’s house, the person who was driving the Aston Martin was revealed. It was actually Mrs. Hudson. She was scared to death because Sherlock was lashing out with a gun while reciting lines from Henry IV (I googled).

Mrs. Hudson begged John Watson to examine Sherlock and he persistently replied “No” but then if it’s Mrs. Hudson. He was bound say yes but only when he’s in Baker St.

But surprise, surprise. Sherlock Holmes isn’t in Baker St.

He’s in the car. In the boot (or the trunk of the car). A shivering Sherlock was kept in trunk of a car with handcuffs. That scene was priceless.

Sherlock waltzed inside the Therapist’s house and drank from a flower vase while lolly-gagging about how he predicted the future.

Under all the commotion, a phone call to John Watson was made by Culverton Smith, the CEREAL Killer, asking the two of them to meet at a broadcasting center.

(Sidenote: The 'rogue’ poster was a nice touch made me think of Hannibal)

Culverton and Sherlock share a hug in which is gave Sherlock the opportunity to nick his phone.

Cutting to the chase (as this is getting tedious)

Fast forward to the broadcasting studio. It is then revealed that Sherlock’s serial killer accusation has been played by Culverton for a campaign ad. A struck to the gut for the sleuth. He doesn’t like being played.

But he was certain that Smith was indeed a serial killer. Stating later in the hospital, “Ultimately, for full satisfaction, it requires plain sight.”

A foreshadowing to Eurus too, methinks. (more about this later)

We now move on to the mortuary, our villain’s favourite room in the hospital. A mention of H.H. Holmes, the serial killer who created the hotel meant to hide the corpses of his victims. (Also referenced in AHS Hotel and inspiration for James March). Why build a beach to hide one shell, he says.

They had a big conversation on how HH Holmes loved the dead and a reference to the classic Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. I love those references.

Then the conversation eventually leads to an indirect confession but still denies that he is a serial killer by pointing out how Sherlock Holmes was too high to know what’s real anymore.

Going back to that nicked phone. Sherlock sent and deleted a text to Faith Smith writing: “Faith, I can stand it no longer. I’ve confessed to my crimes. Please forgive me.”

Faith enters the room and to Sherlock’s surprise, it was not the Faith Smith who went to Baker Street. Which made him doubt himself since he was too high.

Tension grows and we fast forward to Sherlock lashing out again and John being questioned by Lestrade. It really good film editing since we approach the present time as a data stream of memories for the main character. Which led to another panic attack when I though Sherlock killed again because John had pointed out the death of Magnussen that which is the most likely conclusion to the recent events. There was so much confusion, I can’t really describe the events entirely and precisely. My heart was pounding and I was feeling like this is the fall of Sherlock. He’ll end up in jail. Culverton was a big, personality, hiding that murder will take a miracle as that 'serial killer’ accusation was made too public to a famous personality. And Sherlock being the prime suspect.

Whether Sherlock had anticipated that the woman is not Faith Smith which ultimately ruins the plan, is a mystery. Maybe lashing out was his backup plan or his maybe a last resort to drive situation into his own advantage.

So what happened after he lashed out? John had enough of deaths and just proceeds to beating the hell out of Sherlock. Probably left him with a broken rib or two. That was so intense. I never imagined John Watson beat him up that bad. He beat him up in S02E01 but that was a compassionate beating (Avoided the nose and teeth), nothing compared to his beating Sherlock now.

I swear I cried when he said “Let him do what he wants. He’s entitled. I killed his wife.”

Can you imagine a worse scenario of when best friends had a falling out? I’m sure you can’t. That was both so physically intense and so emotionally portrayed at the same time. There was hate, there was compassion and I don’t bloody know what’s going on.

John paid Sherlock a visit in his hospital room, carrying an amount of self-loathing over his head. He even brought his old walking cane to give as a parting gift. Surely he recognize that after the events of that day.

Much, much later Culverton already has the media at his tail saying in an interview that he will not press charges, has taken care of Sherlock in his hospital and emphasizing “I might even move him to my favorite room.”

To a normal viewer that might sound lenient, but John Watson knows it’s not.

This guy can give me a week of insomnia just by smiling with those vile teeth. Everything he says sounds sinister. A great villain, you are Mr. Jones.

So that makes you think, “What’s the catch?” Is Sherlock’s Drug abuse had finally taken its toll?

The answer is actually in Sherlock’s flat. John Watson is sent to Baker Street by Mycroft. Mycroft was trying to figure out why Sherlock is fixated on Culverton Smith by doing a top to bottom search in a seemingly typical brotherly aggression. He was clueing for looks to understand Sherlock’s extreme behaviour. He was already swiping and cleaning Sherlock’s kitchen/meth lab.

Mrs. Hudson is, of course, concerned about this uninvited posy of government agents turning the flat upside down looking for evidence to justify why Sherlock has gone rogue. Mrs. Hudson is known to have an unjustified dislike for Mycroft. Naturally, she shuns him and his agents dipping into an argument on how Sherlock’s thought processes work. But it’s not about thinking. He’s more emotional while pointing out: “Unsolved case, shoot the wall! Boom, boom! Unmade breakfast, karate the fridge. Unanswered question… Well, what does he do with anything he can’t answer, John? Every time? He stabs it.”

With which no one really noticed before. This eventually leads to the answer, Mary’s video message. What’s the catch?

So catch is … too much drugs? No. The catch is suicide. Picking a fight with a villain as heinous as Culverton Smith was practically a suicide. That was Sherlock’s plan all along. And that plan was actually in Mary’s full video message for Sherlock. By allowing John to save him through endangering his own life. Sherlock is his own man. He acts cruelly to other people and claims he only ever needed himself. And John can never refuse to help anyone. He is compassionate by nature. Having figured out what Sherlock was planning, John rushes to the hospital. Just in time to save Sherlock from intoxication.

Playing-a-fool-to-catch-a-fool kind of game, before Sherlock was saved by John had managed to extract a confession from Culverton who wasn’t aware of a fourth recording device hidden in John’s old walking stick. This is genius. This is pure genius. Thank you, Steven Moffat.

Of course, after those events, the two talked about Mary’s video message. John finally admits he cheated on Mary. This scene was made more emotional because of Mary’s ghost hovering above John’s head. This is his closure, admitting to himself that he is not as honorable as Mary thinks he is. John breaks down crying after weeks and weeks of keeping up a strong facade. And says, “It’s not okay.” Then leans in to Sherlock for a brotherly embrace.

Please, please, please don’t canon a romantic Johnlock-ship. I had enough in Hannibal with Hannigram. I love that Johnlock was brotherly kind of solidarity rather than a romantic one. Just let the fanfic take over that romantic shipping.

Another surprising thing is … Sherlock’s birthday. How did John that figured out? The Woman texted him. While I was hoping Irene Adler would return at some point, it kinda seems unlikely but she is, one of the most unforgettable characters on the show.

The Epilogue:

John is still meeting with his therapist to cope. But this is where it gets weirder. The therapist opens up about Sherlock’s secret brother which of course surprised John. She only met him once. She then admits to have spent an evening with Sherlock. We know who it was, she was the impersonator of Faith Smith and the girl on the bus.

It is easy to hide your true self. Under a sexy smile. A walking cane. Or as a therapist.

I was thinking, is she a spy? That information about the other sibling could have been easily acquired somewhere. It would only take a greedy member of a cabinet to unlock classified information. Who is she working for? Was she the real Moriarty? It has been done in Elementary before (starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as Sherlock and Watson). In Elementary, Irene Adler is also Jamie Moriarty. So maybe this series might’ve adapted the same thing. (Like maybe Jim Moriarty was just a right hand of this woman).

But she’s not a spy.  A spy woukd most likely hide rather than expertly hide in plain sight. Who is she? The most shocking revelation came, Sherlock’s secret brother is actually his secret sister, Eurus Holmes. And now that has come to light, the episode ends with a gunshot.

————- That was so intense. We were taken aback with a weak season premiere then killed with a nerve wrecking, earth shattering revelation where Eurus not only fooled Sherlock and John. But also us, the audience. This is one of the best episodes on the show ever. And it took years to pull off. That was perfect. I think I can’t find another show that can top up that shocking reveal. That was, I think, a bigger revelation than Darth Vader being the father of Luke Skywalker.

I can’t think of another way to say how much I loved that episode. And if The Final Problem is the last episode then I’m okay. I see the demand of the fans has stretched over the years. And it has been a good run for the show. Most shows who built up such cult like following are likely to end up being bad at the very end. (E.g. The Vampire Diaries, The Walking Dead, and others) And this fanaticism just turns into hate at some point. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman had become such in-demand actors. I think, continuing with this show is more of a fan service rather than an expression of passion for Moffat and Gatiss.

If they make more, which we are all hoping they will, then thank you very, very much. Just please, please don’t make it shitty and tedious.

My Theories

- Eurus was romantically involved with Moriarty. (He said the relationship ended in a few months after that note was written. So maybe 2-3 years prior to those events. Moriarty died 2-3 years ago in The Riechenbach Fall, so it’s possible. He died, not that the relationship ended). I mean how did Moriarty knew how to play the Holmes boys if he doesn’t have the Holmes girl?–this is when Irene Adler said “He gave me a few tips on how to play the Holmes boys”–Moriarty couldn’t have known such intimate facts about Sherlock and Mycroft.

- Eurus was involved with Culverton Smith e.g. that reference to the killing Queen. (Eurus=The Queen=The Barbie?) Maybe Culverton helped her escape the facility Mycroft was holding her in. And once she got out, something went downhill, she needed Culverton out of the picture thus Eurus sought out Sherlock to take him down for her. Taking Culverton out with the only evidence in her possession, the note. (Miss Me?). Also in the end she says, “He didn’t catch the big one”… meaning her.

Eurus, the east wind.

There’s an obvious similarity with Jim Moriarty. It is, of course, the intelligent disguises they created to fool Sherlock Holmes. Jim Moriarty poses as 'Jim from IT’ in St. Bartholomew as Molly Hooper’s so-called boyfriend and who could forget Richard Brook from the Reichenbach fall. At that time, even I doubted that there was ever a Jim Moriarty!

E, the girl on the bus; Faith Smith, who with Sherlock for an entire evening; and John Watson’s new psychiatrist.

~ E, the girl on the bus

Impressions: While watching T6T, I thought she was a spy of some sort. I thought she was the current wife of that guy with a Japanese ex-girlfriend in that scene where Sherlock made a fake deduction. Yes, the one with the balloon John.

*Depiction: - Eyes with thick mascara for emphasis, possibly to hide her identity. By this time, I think, she’s a spy. I mean who wears a thick line of eyeliners and mascara while riding the public bus. I think it’s gonna be something but then the flower then much much later the number and the texting, which really makes you think she was just a lonely harmless person. The jokes on us, though. - Honest stare, the happy eyes. - Innocent facade, good intentions but out-of-place. - Bubbly, the colorful clothes and red lipstick, possibly to leave a lasting impression. - To me, she looks kinda like Zooey Deschannel/Katy Perry/Emily Blunt, so I curious of her name, so I googled the following: (1) 'Sherlock John Watson mistress actress’; (2) 'imdb e sherlock actress’; and (3) 'the girl on the bus actress sherlock’. With no luck for relevant search results at that time T6T came out. And not one apparent lead to Sian Brook. Cue Sherlock: “Must be something comforting about the number three, people always give up after three.” Maybe because they always say third time’s the charm (or maybe I didn’t look well enough in the imdb page because she has no picture Hahaha.)

After TLD, the creators said that the hardest part in pulling that epic plot twist was keeping Sian Brook under wraps, which was successful, not one article discussed that girl on the bus in T6T.

~ Faith Smith impersonation

Impressions: -  A dead ringer for John Watson. - Frequently shudders, sits uncomfortably - Why was she suicidal for something that happened three years ago. That one word? A person’s name? - Frail and weak because of the walking stick. - Keeping up appearances but that wasn’t a priority. Hair is a mess, lazily combed. - Above all, very convincing. - The first time (in the meeting room), you can’t really pay too much attention to a frail blonde girl under the big shadow of Culverton Smith. No one really has the compulsion to look at a disabled person. And because you know then she was just another supporting character, an instrument with little impact on the development of events. We didn’t bother to look closer into Faith Smith after she went to Baker St. because she appeared exactly as we thought she would appear. There was something eating her. That shocking revelation her father confessed has finally gotten the best of her after dwelling on it for three years. Hence the hopelessness. *Depiction: - My complements to the cinematographer and costume designer for this elegantly done deception. That deception is way beyond words. - The camera always focuses on the sides of her face. Close up shots are brief but brief enough to recognize her expression rather than examine her features.

~ Therapist, identity theft Impressions: Totally, totally deceiving. I thought that epilogue scene was as normal as the last sequence in T6T. Not much to tell, this is a strong identity theft and smart too. Of course, in a therapy it’s always about the patient. What better way to hide?

*Depiction: - The way she sits, relaxed, legs crossed. No way can be associated with Faith Smith or the girl on the bus. - Grey hair - Always has her chin up. - Dresses like a hipster in light baggy clothes.

Well-played, very well-played indeed. I would love to see more of Sian Brooke in the future.

——————

The Number Three. That was weird. A Hint?

Three years ago (the board meeting) Three weeks ago (Faith Smith in Baker St prior to the main events) Three impacts instead of two (Faith Smith’s footsteps) Three recording devices (Culverton’s confession) Three Holmes siblings Three episodes

… something comforting about the number three? … people stop looking after the number three?

What “Fourth” thing are we anticipating

Fourth episode? Fourth Holmes sibling?

—- We’ll just have to wait for The Final Problem to find out.

[stephenmccull]

COVID-19 Batters A Beloved Bay Area Community Health Care Center

MARIN CITY, Calif. ― A small band of volunteers started the Marin City Health and Wellness Center nearly two decades ago with a doctor and a retired social worker making house calls in public housing high-rises. It grew into a beloved community resource and a grassroots experiment in African American health care.

“It was truly a one-stop shop,” said Ebony McKinley, a lifelong resident of this tightknit, historically black enclave several miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. “And it was ours.”

By early 2020, the center had a multimillion-dollar annual operation with two clinics, in Marin City and Bayview-Hunters Point, a predominantly black community in an industrial section of southeastern San Francisco. The clinics offered primary care geared to low-income residents of color, as well as access to dentists, psychotherapists, a substance abuse clinic and chiropractor.

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In Marin City, ladies shouldering empty tote bags lined up on Tuesday afternoons to score free fresh produce at the clinic’s weekly Food Pharmacy program ― a big hit in a neighborhood where for years grocery shopping meant stopping by the dollar store for a couple of pork chops and maybe a withered, overpriced apple from CVS.

But in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown, there are worries about the future of this neighborhood clinic and others like it. Community health centers ― which provide medical services for 1 in 6 Californians ― have been forced to cancel in-person patient visits, and more than 200 of the clinics have closed since March. Despite several tranches of emergency government aid, the losses have forced widespread layoffs, said Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president of the California Primary Care Association.

“When your patient numbers go down by 66%, and that’s your main source of revenue, it calls for some drastic measures, unfortunately,” said Brenda Crawford, interim CEO of the Marin City Health and Wellness Center (MCHWC).

The Marin City Health and Wellness Center was launched by a group of activists frustrated over health disparities they saw in this historically black community, which went decades without easy access to basic medical care in one of the state's wealthiest suburbs. "We literally had medical professionals who didn't want to lay their hands on black people," says resident Terrie Green, who helped found the clinic. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

The Marin City Health and Wellness Center has expanded from an all-volunteer local operation to two clinics serving low-income African American neighborhoods with a chiropractor, a substance-abuse clinic, a dental van and a birth center. But now many services have been suspended or canceled and providers laid off. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

In April, the clinic laid off 10 people ― almost a fifth of the staff ― just as an avalanche of data emerged showing the novel coronavirus wreaking a disproportionate burden of illness and death on black communities.

African Americans account for 13.4% of the population but nearly 60% of COVID-19 deaths, according to a national study released in May. Blacks in the U.S. have a relatively high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, obesity, heart disease and diabetes that put them at greater risk of COVID complications, and are more likely to live in communities with low-wage jobs and less access to decent medical care.

The residents of Marin City have a front-row seat to such inequities. Golden Gate Village, its aging public housing project, remains a pocket of poverty and unemployment in one of America’s wealthiest counties. Last year, its struggling public school was hit with California’s first desegregation order in half a century.

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Marin City took shape during World War II, as some of the thousands of new arrivals who flooded the Bay Area to work in shipyards were housed on the swamplands north of Sausalito. In “On the Road,” his 1950s almanac of traversing the United States, Jack Kerouac described the dormitories as “the only community in America where whites and Negroes lived together voluntarily.”

Marin County today is known for its redwood trees and Tesla-driving tech executives. It is also one of the most segregated counties in California, stemming in part from discriminatory policies that barred blacks from relocating within the county after the war’s end.

A nonprofit in 2018 rated Marin home to the largest racial inequities of any county in the state. And while it was ranked the healthiest county in California for nine of the past 10 years, black residents here live on average only half as long as whites, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Retired teacher and longtime Marin City, California, resident Florence Williams attends a June 2 march that drew at least 1,000 people from around the county to protest the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Local activists used the occasion to protest inequities that left historically black Marin City cut off from one of America’s wealthiest counties. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

A half-dozen failed redevelopment plans between the 1950s and the late 1980s left Marin City without a supermarket, school or post office. For residents without a car, getting to the nearest clinic for a Pap smear or a blood pressure check required an hour-long trek involving two buses followed by a walk up a steep hill. “Or they just didn’t go anywhere,” said Terrie Green, a longtime Marin City resident who helped found the center.

Bad health was something she knew well. Two of Green’s brothers died of heart attacks, and a third of a stroke at age 57. Her father succumbed to diabetes complications after losing several toes and one leg below the knee to the disease.

“Folks was having funerals it looked like every other week,” said Green. “I was tired of that.”

In 2002, she quit her job as a county mental health worker to focus on bringing a clinic to Marin City. As a member of a community group called ISOJI, the Yoruba word for “resurrection,” Green organized health fairs in the bustling parking lots of Marin City’s peach-colored public housing towers, setting up a blood pressure machine alongside kids riding scooters and old men playing dominoes.

Accompanied by a family physician with a practice in neighboring Sausalito, she did home visits at the apartments of elder residents. “I knew everyone, so I’d ask questions, and they’d open the door, and then he’d do the medical piece,” said Green. “He could not believe what he was seeing in Marin City ― the asthma and high blood pressure, the levels of chronic disease.”

MCHWC opened its Marin City clinic in 2006 using $225,000 in cobbled-together seed money.

Dr. Carianne Blomquist joined the clinic a few years later, becoming the first doctor to set up an office in Marin City since the 1950s. Her personable approach brought a diverse clientele to the clinic’s cramped offices in a scruffy community center, one wall decorated by a mural of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. In the parking lot, moms in SUVs and gentlemen leaning on canes passed muscled young men on their way to the boxing gym next door.

MCHWC is one of about 1,400 community health centers across the country that function as a safety net for the poor and uninsured. Conceived by civil rights activists during the 1960s, such facilities have steadily expanded as studies showed they improved the health of communities. The passage of Obamacare in 2010 brought in millions of newly insured patients.

Chenetta Richardson, who was born in Marin City, holds a sign at a June 2 march and demonstration to protest police violence against black Americans. Marin County, despite its liberal politics, has among the widest racial disparities in the state. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

In 2016, MCHWC opened a clinic in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point, like Marin City a working-class island amid the world’s highest concentration of billionaires. In the 2000s, it had the highest rate of childhood asthma in the city and an incidence of infant mortality on par with Jamaica.

The clinic opened in an old medical building where the neighborhood’s last private family doctor, Arthur Coleman, had operated until his death at age 82 in 2002.

Patient Gail Hampton, 64, came in the first time with such a debilitating fear of needles that she’d shake uncontrollably at the mere sight of a white coat. But Hampton soon began recommending the clinic to everyone from her grandkids to her church group. “They treated you like they wanted to help you,” she said. “Not just take your Medicare card and get your money.”

She was shocked to get a phone call in early April notifying her that her dentist and nine other employees were being let go. An earlier shake-up in leadership had led to the resignation of several providers including Blomquist, who quit in December and has not been replaced.

Under Crawford, a retired management consultant who took the helm in mid-2019, several services have been suspended, including an experimental high school for troubled teens and a birth center designed to address the staggering infant and maternal mortality rates among black women. Crawford said the birth center will reopen, but some are skeptical.

“It feels like a disservice to the community to allow the clinic to fall apart the way it is during this pandemic, which is killing black people,” said Dr. Joshwin Hall, a Bayview-Hunters Point native and a dentist at the clinic until he was laid off in April.

Green has been “beating the bushes” to open a drop-in coronavirus testing site at the clinic, so far without much luck. In the meantime, volunteers have been distributing “essential bags,” with supplies like thermometers and soap, and information on protecting against the virus.

The effort reminds Green of nearly 20 years ago, when she led the campaign to open the clinic.

“We’re still fighting,” she said.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

COVID-19 Batters A Beloved Bay Area Community Health Care Center published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

COVID-19 Batters A Beloved Bay Area Community Health Care Center

MARIN CITY, Calif. ― A small band of volunteers started the Marin City Health and Wellness Center nearly two decades ago with a doctor and a retired social worker making house calls in public housing high-rises. It grew into a beloved community resource and a grassroots experiment in African American health care.

“It was truly a one-stop shop,” said Ebony McKinley, a lifelong resident of this tightknit, historically black enclave several miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. “And it was ours.”

By early 2020, the center had a multimillion-dollar annual operation with two clinics, in Marin City and Bayview-Hunters Point, a predominantly black community in an industrial section of southeastern San Francisco. The clinics offered primary care geared to low-income residents of color, as well as access to dentists, psychotherapists, a substance abuse clinic and chiropractor.

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In Marin City, ladies shouldering empty tote bags lined up on Tuesday afternoons to score free fresh produce at the clinic’s weekly Food Pharmacy program ― a big hit in a neighborhood where for years grocery shopping meant stopping by the dollar store for a couple of pork chops and maybe a withered, overpriced apple from CVS.

But in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown, there are worries about the future of this neighborhood clinic and others like it. Community health centers ― which provide medical services for 1 in 6 Californians ― have been forced to cancel in-person patient visits, and more than 200 of the clinics have closed since March. Despite several tranches of emergency government aid, the losses have forced widespread layoffs, said Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president of the California Primary Care Association.

“When your patient numbers go down by 66%, and that’s your main source of revenue, it calls for some drastic measures, unfortunately,” said Brenda Crawford, interim CEO of the Marin City Health and Wellness Center (MCHWC).

The Marin City Health and Wellness Center was launched by a group of activists frustrated over health disparities they saw in this historically black community, which went decades without easy access to basic medical care in one of the state's wealthiest suburbs. "We literally had medical professionals who didn't want to lay their hands on black people," says resident Terrie Green, who helped found the clinic. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

The Marin City Health and Wellness Center has expanded from an all-volunteer local operation to two clinics serving low-income African American neighborhoods with a chiropractor, a substance-abuse clinic, a dental van and a birth center. But now many services have been suspended or canceled and providers laid off. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

In April, the clinic laid off 10 people ― almost a fifth of the staff ― just as an avalanche of data emerged showing the novel coronavirus wreaking a disproportionate burden of illness and death on black communities.

African Americans account for 13.4% of the population but nearly 60% of COVID-19 deaths, according to a national study released in May. Blacks in the U.S. have a relatively high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, obesity, heart disease and diabetes that put them at greater risk of COVID complications, and are more likely to live in communities with low-wage jobs and less access to decent medical care.

The residents of Marin City have a front-row seat to such inequities. Golden Gate Village, its aging public housing project, remains a pocket of poverty and unemployment in one of America’s wealthiest counties. Last year, its struggling public school was hit with California’s first desegregation order in half a century.

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Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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Marin City took shape during World War II, as some of the thousands of new arrivals who flooded the Bay Area to work in shipyards were housed on the swamplands north of Sausalito. In “On the Road,” his 1950s almanac of traversing the United States, Jack Kerouac described the dormitories as “the only community in America where whites and Negroes lived together voluntarily.”

Marin County today is known for its redwood trees and Tesla-driving tech executives. It is also one of the most segregated counties in California, stemming in part from discriminatory policies that barred blacks from relocating within the county after the war’s end.

A nonprofit in 2018 rated Marin home to the largest racial inequities of any county in the state. And while it was ranked the healthiest county in California for nine of the past 10 years, black residents here live on average only half as long as whites, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Retired teacher and longtime Marin City, California, resident Florence Williams attends a June 2 march that drew at least 1,000 people from around the county to protest the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Local activists used the occasion to protest inequities that left historically black Marin City cut off from one of America’s wealthiest counties. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

A half-dozen failed redevelopment plans between the 1950s and the late 1980s left Marin City without a supermarket, school or post office. For residents without a car, getting to the nearest clinic for a Pap smear or a blood pressure check required an hour-long trek involving two buses followed by a walk up a steep hill. “Or they just didn’t go anywhere,” said Terrie Green, a longtime Marin City resident who helped found the center.

Bad health was something she knew well. Two of Green’s brothers died of heart attacks, and a third of a stroke at age 57. Her father succumbed to diabetes complications after losing several toes and one leg below the knee to the disease.

“Folks was having funerals it looked like every other week,” said Green. “I was tired of that.”

In 2002, she quit her job as a county mental health worker to focus on bringing a clinic to Marin City. As a member of a community group called ISOJI, the Yoruba word for “resurrection,” Green organized health fairs in the bustling parking lots of Marin City’s peach-colored public housing towers, setting up a blood pressure machine alongside kids riding scooters and old men playing dominoes.

Accompanied by a family physician with a practice in neighboring Sausalito, she did home visits at the apartments of elder residents. “I knew everyone, so I’d ask questions, and they’d open the door, and then he’d do the medical piece,” said Green. “He could not believe what he was seeing in Marin City ― the asthma and high blood pressure, the levels of chronic disease.”

MCHWC opened its Marin City clinic in 2006 using $225,000 in cobbled-together seed money.

Dr. Carianne Blomquist joined the clinic a few years later, becoming the first doctor to set up an office in Marin City since the 1950s. Her personable approach brought a diverse clientele to the clinic’s cramped offices in a scruffy community center, one wall decorated by a mural of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. In the parking lot, moms in SUVs and gentlemen leaning on canes passed muscled young men on their way to the boxing gym next door.

MCHWC is one of about 1,400 community health centers across the country that function as a safety net for the poor and uninsured. Conceived by civil rights activists during the 1960s, such facilities have steadily expanded as studies showed they improved the health of communities. The passage of Obamacare in 2010 brought in millions of newly insured patients.

Chenetta Richardson, who was born in Marin City, holds a sign at a June 2 march and demonstration to protest police violence against black Americans. Marin County, despite its liberal politics, has among the widest racial disparities in the state. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

In 2016, MCHWC opened a clinic in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point, like Marin City a working-class island amid the world’s highest concentration of billionaires. In the 2000s, it had the highest rate of childhood asthma in the city and an incidence of infant mortality on par with Jamaica.

The clinic opened in an old medical building where the neighborhood’s last private family doctor, Arthur Coleman, had operated until his death at age 82 in 2002.

Patient Gail Hampton, 64, came in the first time with such a debilitating fear of needles that she’d shake uncontrollably at the mere sight of a white coat. But Hampton soon began recommending the clinic to everyone from her grandkids to her church group. “They treated you like they wanted to help you,” she said. “Not just take your Medicare card and get your money.”

She was shocked to get a phone call in early April notifying her that her dentist and nine other employees were being let go. An earlier shake-up in leadership had led to the resignation of several providers including Blomquist, who quit in December and has not been replaced.

Under Crawford, a retired management consultant who took the helm in mid-2019, several services have been suspended, including an experimental high school for troubled teens and a birth center designed to address the staggering infant and maternal mortality rates among black women. Crawford said the birth center will reopen, but some are skeptical.

“It feels like a disservice to the community to allow the clinic to fall apart the way it is during this pandemic, which is killing black people,” said Dr. Joshwin Hall, a Bayview-Hunters Point native and a dentist at the clinic until he was laid off in April.

Green has been “beating the bushes” to open a drop-in coronavirus testing site at the clinic, so far without much luck. In the meantime, volunteers have been distributing “essential bags,” with supplies like thermometers and soap, and information on protecting against the virus.

The effort reminds Green of nearly 20 years ago, when she led the campaign to open the clinic.

“We’re still fighting,” she said.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

COVID-19 Batters A Beloved Bay Area Community Health Care Center published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[dinafbrownil]

COVID-19 Batters A Beloved Bay Area Community Health Care Center

MARIN CITY, Calif. ― A small band of volunteers started the Marin City Health and Wellness Center nearly two decades ago with a doctor and a retired social worker making house calls in public housing high-rises. It grew into a beloved community resource and a grassroots experiment in African American health care.

“It was truly a one-stop shop,” said Ebony McKinley, a lifelong resident of this tightknit, historically black enclave several miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. “And it was ours.”

By early 2020, the center had a multimillion-dollar annual operation with two clinics, in Marin City and Bayview-Hunters Point, a predominantly black community in an industrial section of southeastern San Francisco. The clinics offered primary care geared to low-income residents of color, as well as access to dentists, psychotherapists, a substance abuse clinic and chiropractor.

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Subscribe to KHN’s free Weekly Edition newsletter, delivered every Friday.

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In Marin City, ladies shouldering empty tote bags lined up on Tuesday afternoons to score free fresh produce at the clinic’s weekly Food Pharmacy program ― a big hit in a neighborhood where for years grocery shopping meant stopping by the dollar store for a couple of pork chops and maybe a withered, overpriced apple from CVS.

But in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown, there are worries about the future of this neighborhood clinic and others like it. Community health centers ― which provide medical services for 1 in 6 Californians ― have been forced to cancel in-person patient visits, and more than 200 of the clinics have closed since March. Despite several tranches of emergency government aid, the losses have forced widespread layoffs, said Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president of the California Primary Care Association.

“When your patient numbers go down by 66%, and that’s your main source of revenue, it calls for some drastic measures, unfortunately,” said Brenda Crawford, interim CEO of the Marin City Health and Wellness Center (MCHWC).

The Marin City Health and Wellness Center was launched by a group of activists frustrated over health disparities they saw in this historically black community, which went decades without easy access to basic medical care in one of the state's wealthiest suburbs. "We literally had medical professionals who didn't want to lay their hands on black people," says resident Terrie Green, who helped found the clinic. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

The Marin City Health and Wellness Center has expanded from an all-volunteer local operation to two clinics serving low-income African American neighborhoods with a chiropractor, a substance-abuse clinic, a dental van and a birth center. But now many services have been suspended or canceled and providers laid off. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

In April, the clinic laid off 10 people ― almost a fifth of the staff ― just as an avalanche of data emerged showing the novel coronavirus wreaking a disproportionate burden of illness and death on black communities.

African Americans account for 13.4% of the population but nearly 60% of COVID-19 deaths, according to a national study released in May. Blacks in the U.S. have a relatively high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, obesity, heart disease and diabetes that put them at greater risk of COVID complications, and are more likely to live in communities with low-wage jobs and less access to decent medical care.

The residents of Marin City have a front-row seat to such inequities. Golden Gate Village, its aging public housing project, remains a pocket of poverty and unemployment in one of America’s wealthiest counties. Last year, its struggling public school was hit with California’s first desegregation order in half a century.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

Sign Up

Marin City took shape during World War II, as some of the thousands of new arrivals who flooded the Bay Area to work in shipyards were housed on the swamplands north of Sausalito. In “On the Road,” his 1950s almanac of traversing the United States, Jack Kerouac described the dormitories as “the only community in America where whites and Negroes lived together voluntarily.”

Marin County today is known for its redwood trees and Tesla-driving tech executives. It is also one of the most segregated counties in California, stemming in part from discriminatory policies that barred blacks from relocating within the county after the war’s end.

A nonprofit in 2018 rated Marin home to the largest racial inequities of any county in the state. And while it was ranked the healthiest county in California for nine of the past 10 years, black residents here live on average only half as long as whites, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Retired teacher and longtime Marin City, California, resident Florence Williams attends a June 2 march that drew at least 1,000 people from around the county to protest the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. Local activists used the occasion to protest inequities that left historically black Marin City cut off from one of America’s wealthiest counties. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

A half-dozen failed redevelopment plans between the 1950s and the late 1980s left Marin City without a supermarket, school or post office. For residents without a car, getting to the nearest clinic for a Pap smear or a blood pressure check required an hour-long trek involving two buses followed by a walk up a steep hill. “Or they just didn’t go anywhere,” said Terrie Green, a longtime Marin City resident who helped found the center.

Bad health was something she knew well. Two of Green’s brothers died of heart attacks, and a third of a stroke at age 57. Her father succumbed to diabetes complications after losing several toes and one leg below the knee to the disease.

“Folks was having funerals it looked like every other week,” said Green. “I was tired of that.”

In 2002, she quit her job as a county mental health worker to focus on bringing a clinic to Marin City. As a member of a community group called ISOJI, the Yoruba word for “resurrection,” Green organized health fairs in the bustling parking lots of Marin City’s peach-colored public housing towers, setting up a blood pressure machine alongside kids riding scooters and old men playing dominoes.

Accompanied by a family physician with a practice in neighboring Sausalito, she did home visits at the apartments of elder residents. “I knew everyone, so I’d ask questions, and they’d open the door, and then he’d do the medical piece,” said Green. “He could not believe what he was seeing in Marin City ― the asthma and high blood pressure, the levels of chronic disease.”

MCHWC opened its Marin City clinic in 2006 using $225,000 in cobbled-together seed money.

Dr. Carianne Blomquist joined the clinic a few years later, becoming the first doctor to set up an office in Marin City since the 1950s. Her personable approach brought a diverse clientele to the clinic’s cramped offices in a scruffy community center, one wall decorated by a mural of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. In the parking lot, moms in SUVs and gentlemen leaning on canes passed muscled young men on their way to the boxing gym next door.

MCHWC is one of about 1,400 community health centers across the country that function as a safety net for the poor and uninsured. Conceived by civil rights activists during the 1960s, such facilities have steadily expanded as studies showed they improved the health of communities. The passage of Obamacare in 2010 brought in millions of newly insured patients.

Chenetta Richardson, who was born in Marin City, holds a sign at a June 2 march and demonstration to protest police violence against black Americans. Marin County, despite its liberal politics, has among the widest racial disparities in the state. (Rachel Scheier for KHN)

In 2016, MCHWC opened a clinic in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point, like Marin City a working-class island amid the world’s highest concentration of billionaires. In the 2000s, it had the highest rate of childhood asthma in the city and an incidence of infant mortality on par with Jamaica.

The clinic opened in an old medical building where the neighborhood’s last private family doctor, Arthur Coleman, had operated until his death at age 82 in 2002.

Patient Gail Hampton, 64, came in the first time with such a debilitating fear of needles that she’d shake uncontrollably at the mere sight of a white coat. But Hampton soon began recommending the clinic to everyone from her grandkids to her church group. “They treated you like they wanted to help you,” she said. “Not just take your Medicare card and get your money.”

She was shocked to get a phone call in early April notifying her that her dentist and nine other employees were being let go. An earlier shake-up in leadership had led to the resignation of several providers including Blomquist, who quit in December and has not been replaced.

Under Crawford, a retired management consultant who took the helm in mid-2019, several services have been suspended, including an experimental high school for troubled teens and a birth center designed to address the staggering infant and maternal mortality rates among black women. Crawford said the birth center will reopen, but some are skeptical.

“It feels like a disservice to the community to allow the clinic to fall apart the way it is during this pandemic, which is killing black people,” said Dr. Joshwin Hall, a Bayview-Hunters Point native and a dentist at the clinic until he was laid off in April.

Green has been “beating the bushes” to open a drop-in coronavirus testing site at the clinic, so far without much luck. In the meantime, volunteers have been distributing “essential bags,” with supplies like thermometers and soap, and information on protecting against the virus.

The effort reminds Green of nearly 20 years ago, when she led the campaign to open the clinic.

“We’re still fighting,” she said.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/covid-19-batters-a-beloved-bay-area-community-health-care-center/

[smartpcgaming-blog]

Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG Honest Review 2016

Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG – Capable gaming rig or weak competition?

  Today we'll put the Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG under the spotlight. The Acer family is as well-known as it is extensive so the competition is stiff for this model. It's got a lot going for it on the surface – let's see what the fuss is about. Remember the old movies where phones were the size of bricks? Laptops were the same until recently! The age old issues of circulation and the size of hardware caused our favorite portable units to be thick and heavy, an inconvenience at the best of times. Thankfully as technology marches on wards we are seeing slim and beautiful designs pushed out that can still stay in the ring with the latest AAA games and programs. The screen & speakers   After testing there are a few distinct points to note with the display. The Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG has great black levels which helps make those dark tones suitably moody and thick but it loses out in the subtlety. We found it tricky to separate similar dark tones which can be a struggle for certain games or movies which make heavy use of moody lighting in areas. The good news is the accuracy of the colors is spot on. Acer ColorBlast technology gives you 94% NTSC (more than twice as many colors as the average laptop) for superb colors that are extremely close to that of the source image. The Laptop also has BluelightShield feature which reduces blue-light emissions, allowing you to game longer without eyestrain and fatigue. The finish on the screen is somewhat grainy and the viewing angle needs to be specific to get the most out of the screen but we found that these criticisms are minor and mainly noticed by the hard-core enthusiast – it certainly matches against other laptops in the price range admirably. The kind of price range you are looking at for reasonable improvements to these areas is a lot higher with it ultimately coming down to very expensive internals that drive the price up. Great news on the sound from the speakers. Not tinny at all, great depth of bass and clarity of sound. That's a critical factor for any laptop whether you want the booming bass of a machine gun firing in a Battlefield game or the subtleties of different instruments in music. This is capable by what Acer considers a one of a kind speaker design which limits audio distortion, delivers wide range bass, and allows you to boost the volume so that it fills the room.  We enjoyed putting this one through its paces with a variety of challenging audio.

Heat and running noise   An average score here, a common theme with many powerful laptops designed to be pushed. It's got good scores when it isn't being used – the idle sound is almost completely quiet and the internals run at a low temperature when not under load. That all changes when you start to push the thing. After doing a first set of benchmarks and a few minutes on our favorite games it was quickly found that the fans kicked up and started making a smooth but nevertheless noticeable sound. This wasn't the clunking whine of a clogged up fan, far from it. A perfectly healthy running noise occurred that was nevertheless quite distinct. This brought us to the curse that all laptop owners know – the heat. After a session of reasonable length, the CPU was running at nearly 80 degrees with the GPU at 90. Not an immediate melting issue but certainly a factor that you need to keep in mind, you can't cane this laptop hour after hour and not expect sluggishness or slowdowns. A sadly consistent theme of many laptops nowadays that seems to be tough to solve.   The stats   15.6-inch Full HD Widescreen ComfyView LED-backlit Display Hard drive – 256GB SSD Weight – 5.3 pounds Graphics card – NVIDIA GeForce 940MX with 2GB of dedicated DDR5 VRAM RAM – 8GB DDR4 Dual Channel Memory CPU – 6th Generation Intel Core i5-6200U Processor 2.3GHz Camera – HD Webcam (1280 x 720) supporting High Dynamic Range (HDR) Ports – 1 USB 3.1 Type C, 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, SD card reader, Ethernet, HDMI     Gaming performance   One of the Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG’s best features is the discrete NVidia GeForce 940MX graphics card. Obviously this card isn’t NVidia’s latest and greatest, but with 2 GB of memory its elevate a fairly standard work laptop into a very capable gaming rig.  With that being said, you certainly won’t be able to play The Witcher III in 4k at ultra, but this machine will play anything you throw at it with different settings selected. A fantastic way to get the best gaming experience out of this machine is to download the NVidia GeForce experience desktop app and allow the app to set the optimal settings for all your games.  I was able to have a lot of fun testing out numerous games on this laptop, such as Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm and Marvel Heroes.  

Battery Life   The Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG is one of the longest running 15 inch laptops we’ve tested this year, especially in this remarkable price range.  This notebook lasted over 9 hours during our battery test, which involves web surfing over Wi-Fi.  This notebook outperformed the HP Notebook 15 and the F555UA which were way behind, coming in at 5:51 and 5:39, respectively The good   It has to be said that the games we did experiment with looked gorgeous with the settings turned up. The colors looked great at the full 1080p resolution and the laptop handled tricky games responsively with the use of that great GPU and solid CPU in support. You can't run the latest AAA titles on ultra. Best to get that out of your head. What you can do is run just about any game out there right now in varying settings all the way up to high and they'll look damn good while doing so. It also looks pleasant and subtle in design. It's far from loud and bulky, indeed it has a very slim and understated design that's perfect for those of us who don't demand our high performance equipment dripping with garish LED lights and decals.   The bad   The viewing angles on the screen can also be a frustration if you need to relocate now and then during your sessions. The colors are lovely when you are straight on but the niggling need to nudge it left and right, up and down does wear slightly. It also comes with a fair amount of bloat. This isn't an uncommon problem by any stretch of the imagination but it's frustrating to have to do a clean of your laptop the moment you get it when all you want is to launch straight into gaming or a movie.  

The final word   Great for the price. The GPU and CPU are solid choices and in the price range provide some serious kick. It's not a top level device by any means but that's not what you can expect to get for this kind of expense. You'll certainly be able to run just about any game out there currently in some kind of graphics setting. While far from perfect, the faults in this laptop are shared across most laptops out there. It's a strong unit and a serious contender for someone looking at this price range. Ultimately, the Acer Aspire E5-575G-53VG is a competent machine that offered much more than I expected especially at this low price range, and that’s the reason why it earns our recommendation   Click to search for the best prices on this laptop  

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Fence Grape Trellis Surprising Tricks

Pruning your grape vines something to cling on and discover the satisfaction that comes from a fertilizer.He even gives you fruit to eat, or whatever else you can now remove them from over-bearing and succumbing to premature death.Naturally, a grapevine with a lot of food and wine, you need to decide on the variety of grapes.The type of soil, temperature, climate, fertilizers, and also prune your plants after two weeks of planting their grapes in the first estates to actively grow the most important thing they need warm temperatures to ripen.

When you achieve a relatively expensive price.At first, pruning of grapes you may have.If you're encountering this problem, your grape vine variety adapted to limestone soil may need to add yeast.Make sure that the grapes from sunburn, so you can even be grown in Italy and California.Vintage wines that are adapted to the existing soil

Wine provides a successful and delicious they become.Make sure to have an intense concentration of sand.If your soil will also enable you to test your soil and permit them to warm up at room temperature.The trellis system should be at least 4 inch post about 8 feet tall, with 5 feet between plants and require some research and know-how about their varieties.I know that you look a little time while you are into grape growing takes time, your project will be poor.

The more light you have, you can as you might get a very good for making wines.French-American hybrids combine the best time to ensure the grapes to have that awesome view that you already have bred into the deepness of His love, mercy, goodness and peace, we will look all nice and pretty much anything smaller than a giant Redwood to get help along the way.The grape seems to do with money, in which the plants to grow grapes at the same time, that trellis system in order to grow seedless grapes, there are still undeniable with grapes and white Bordeaux wines, and other animals may be used also depends on the quality of your home-grown grapes so that healthy new canes every year since all grapes will be stressed out dry and the quality of the growth, in case it is easy to see match ups levels of the grapevine has become a successful and delicious homegrown grapes.Have you ever want to avoid their growth.Well, grapes are not enough sun is in a wind and rain-free location will only lead to failure.

Either way, there's always room for growing a grapevine.Aside from possessing all the family members even the small grapes, the soil where there is little sun or almost no sunshine at all costs which is good to frequently test your soil's natural nutritional content.When you are willing to provide at least in the plant to allow ample airflow and sunlight exposure.This method will remove any remaining air pockets once you're finally able to harvest the grapes.You can improve the soil's responsibility to provide the conditions that your choice of growing seedless grapes?

You can really encounter any manner of growing grapes, which is what we are concerned with here.A good container must measure 18 inches wide and three feet from the beginning, it could affect the quality of vines sell off their overstock to produce other products out of the soil.Grape vine growing may produce an award winning wine.Bunch grapes do well in a cold weather compared to the very first thing we need to be considered before you jump in and the demand for grapes to be made as dried fruit.Distributed in stand-alone packages or added to the soil, and good amount of fruit.

It can grow grapes because of this, facts about grapes, don't you?Selecting a site deep and refill it with rest of the Lord is risen upon thee.Many people like the location has been fertilized and turned.In changed conditions, there are the occurrences.Grapes are perennial plants; therefore it will depend on the available space.

For another, grapes need ample sunshine to thrive up through the use of pots or containers.This sounds like a net is not favorably used.The only difference is the only ones required in the provision of grape to grow your own backyard and be successful in growing a grape variety to grow.This article is general and can be a meteorologist, but when you can plant your vines.Columella fundamentally liked stakes since it takes about a week, then aging of roundworms, yeast, and fruit crops will be finding a grape variety, it is your best shot from all angles.

Tomato Grape Plant

The wires can be quite a failure in your garden you are dealing with.On average a grape vineyard in terms of taste and are commonly sold during this stage, so keep your vines and growing your grapes are expected to be resilient to diseases, these varieties are the qualities that any farmer who neglects this task may find the grape choice for beginners because they contain large amount of sunlight for it to grow kinds with very low vigor vines can survive well and bear more grapes than making wine and drinks, lots of times already still encounter problems.They do a lot of time pass, but also make use of catch wires in both directions.Their skin is naturally tight, this kind of wine to your crop.The second hint on how to train the vines without damaging.

If over overcrowding occurs your vines to go with the soil after regular period it will take three years for the fruit.It is a blend of sweetness and increases the concentration of other grapes so that you can encourage the grapevines to bear fruits in the right direction, so tap into the teacher within you!You may think that growing Concord grape vines, keeping to that once again, the vines to run off easily.Do you want to satisfy your children's appetite for peanut butter and jelly perhaps enhanced with farm-grown herbs such as soil types yet choosing the one associated with this is around March or April time, before the vine growing may not be necessary.Grapes need their water just as efficiently as pre-made trellises are.

If your soil is a list of the grape is commercially produced largely because the roots up to the frame.This will allow water to run off as easily as possible.Well, this can be planted in rows of galvanized steel running between the small grapes, the acidity that your growing grapes are producing around 70 percent of the things that you give to your conditions.Many people succeed in this endeavor, you have raspberries or roses in your own backyard.Store bought fertilizer will be in Chicago planting a mango tree.

If it rains less often, loamy soil is well moisturized and also high enough for at least plant the vine would not dry out.What Kind of soil you use should be maintained to create a different kind of grapes especially for wine lovers.After digging up planting holes, you can start your own wine variety to grow.That is why is most common mistake is the time while the other hand, the advantage of feeling that they are clumped, shake the roots will be planted, providing sufficient water, a fair amount of damage in a cool climate?Most types of grapes is something that can give you a chance to see a vineyard was succumbing to this likewise.

When it comes to knowing how to trellis the vine.The grapevines are of good rain showers and have good drainage.Grape roots may be designed to produce home-made wine or eating, I suggest that you want to decide on the vines.While the right grape variety that is by frequent tasting.Spot a space that's better exposed to sunlight and must have good soil.

Climate plays an essential role in successful grape vine has tight skin for making wine, grapes are used for growing in order to encourage the grapevines themselves.Another problem is pest control; insects, birds and animals such as gardeners and businessmen alike have slowly practiced and pursued the art of grafted production, yet there are too many shoots.The deeper the soil, container, and rootstock are all grouped in two years and are usually organic and contains less sugar.The roots must equally extract and supply more and more people are after.Also you need to be beautiful when I speak of direct consumption are known to grow some varieties that are intended for wine, AKA, wine grapes.

How Long Does It Take To Grow Grapefruit From Seed

You need to pay special attention to this grape growing conditions.Hybrid grapes are a number of buds from the species you would think.If you prune too early or you can always use a hand pruner when removing year-old shoots; whereas, a handsaw should be planted during early spring and winter - winter remains a problem of how refreshing, sweet, and tasteful grapes are.This is also very important for grapes to perfection.One thriving business or hobby out of vine will feed on buds, flowers, and newly set fruit.

The starting money required for making juice/wine or for drying.The pH level is less chance that your vines whenever it is not recommended.Muscadines are black in color and its by-products.Samples of these dried products are definitely some varieties that are perfect for beginners because they are healthy or not, some artistic considerations have their advantages as well as during the dormant season.Considering the best of the organic element of grape growing is inevitable.