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of-wrens-and-whirlwinds-blog · 4 years

Text

Nanny

Commission for the ever-wonderful @depressedstressedlemonzest ! I hope you enjoy this, my love! Even though it got away from me a bit, eh heh heh. *sweats* Commission info is in my about page!

CW: ableism

Geralt did not know what to expect regarding the nanny he had contacted. He had been open to it being anyone, as long as they weren’t a creep.

He would never in a million years have expected his one-night-stand for two days ago to end up on his doorstep.

Geralt and Jaskier stared at each other, equally stunned. Finally, Jaskier cleared his throat and said lamely, “So you’re the Mr. Rivia who emailed me?”

“Yes,” Geralt got out stiffly.

“Daa-ddyyyy!” Ciri wailed from the living room. “Hungry!”

Geralt grimaced and rubbed his forehead. “Please come in,” he said with no enthusiasm. “I have to get Ciri her lunch.”

Jaskier nodded and followed him inside the small townhouse.

Ciri was stomping inside her pen, making frustrated noises. As soon as Geralt lifted her out, she beamed and threw her arms around his neck. “Hungry!” she yelled again, right in his ear.

“Of course, love,” Geralt agreed, rubbing her back soothingly as he took her to the kitchen. “What would you like for lunch today?”

“Ramen!” Ciri squealed, bouncing in his arms and tugging his hair. Geralt didn’t even flinch. He was used to it by now.

So he put Ciri in the high chair, started the ramen, and only remembered Jaskier when Ciri asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Julian,” Jaskier replied. “And you are?”

“Ciri. That’s my daddy!”

“I noticed!”

Geralt’s mouth tightened as Jaskier and Ciri chatted. They were already on their way to being friends. Not good. If he decided not to hire Jaskier, Ciri would be upset and cry. But it would be better to not hire him. Right?

It had been a very good night when he shared Jaskier’s bed. He’d especially liked how Jaskier had--

Geralt swallowed hard and poured in the ramen noodles. They had both decided to end it there. It was a bad idea to let Jaskier stick around. He was too… bright, and loud, and frankly annoying. It didn’t matter that his terrible flirting was entertaining, or that he was a great singer, or that he obviously knew how to befriend children. Geralt would probably get pissed enough to throw him out in a week.

Ciri crowed with laughter and Geralt’s breath caught in his throat. She hadn’t laughed like that for anyone other than Geralt since Yennefer left.

With his heart sufficiently aching from Ciri’s excitement, Geralt turned away from the stove and walked to the table. Jaskier was already teaching her that stupid song about the spider and the water spout, and how to move her hands to the words. They were both grinning, as Ciri tried to sing along. Geralt wanted to say something, but she was happy, so he got a juicebox from the fridge and set it in reach for her, then retreated to the counter to watch them.

“Do you like ramen?” Ciri asked Jaskier, her green eyes wide with fascination.

“I do,” Jaskier replied, still smiling. “It’s one of my favorite foods.”

“It’s mine too!” Ciri said gleefully, waving her arms and knocking over the juicebox. Geralt lunged and caught it, and set it on the tray of the highchair again. “I like chicken ramen best! Daddy makes the best chicken ramen!”

Jaskier glanced over to Geralt, looking thoroughly amused. Geralt reddened in embarrassment. “That’s wonderful, wee,” Jaskier told Ciri. “Do you eat it often?”

“Every day!” Ciri crowed proudly.

Jaskier’s smile faded a little, but then he brightened it again. “Wow, it must be really good.”

“It is!”

Geralt looked down at the floor to hide his shamed expression. It was a good thing Ciri liked ramen, cold cereal, and canned soup; Geralt hadn’t had the money to buy fresh food since the lawyers stripped Geralt of his income from Vesemir’s estate. Unemployment payments were barely enough to pay the mortgage, the utilities, and Ciri’s diapers. Anything extra came from odd jobs around the city.

But he simply could not afford to leave Ciri alone, not when he needed to find a full-time job, and none of the daycare centers would accept a child of a Witcher. So--a nanny.

Ciri and Jaskier kept talking, and Geralt kept feeling more and more horrible, as Ciri told Jaskier all about her and Geralt’s playing every day except the days after he drank too much, and visiting Lambert and Eskel for dinner (they had insisted on at least feeding them, though Geralt refused their financial help), and her mommy sending her presents in the mail. At least, Daddy said they were from her mommy.

Geralt turned away at that point. The presents were not from Yennefer. They were what he could buy with scraped-up savings. He didn’t want Ciri to think Yenn had abandoned her, and to never remember her fondly.

The ramen was done. He drained it, put half a packet of seasoning in, and brought it to Ciri, along with her favorite spork. She squealed in delight and immediately began eating. Geralt’s stomach ached. Fuck, had she been hungry all morning? Was that day’s breakfast not enough? They didn’t have much cereal left, and he wasn’t sure he could afford more when the next check came in, oh fuck, he was going to have another panic attack--

“Please slow down, love,” Geralt managed to say, stroking Ciri’s hair gently. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Ciri grumbled, but slowed. Geralt sat at the table across from Jaskier, and waited for the reprimands. Everyone reprimanded him when they got to know how he was raising Ciri. It was why he never told anyone about her unless pressed.

He was shaking. His chest hurt, especially his lungs. Why did he feel so light-headed?

“So,” Jaskier said, breaking through Geralt’s fearful thoughts. “I’m assuming the interview can happen now?”

No, absolutely not. Jaskier should leave, and swear not to report Geralt for neglect. Instead of saying that, Geralt nodded mutely.

“Innervu?” Ciri asked with her mouth full.

“An interview is where a person asks another questions, usually about their work,” Jaskier told her.

“But Daddy doesn’t work,” Ciri replied, confused.

Jaskier’s face flickered sadness before he shut that emotion away. “No, he’s going to ask me questions.”

“Ohhh.” Ciri nodded wisely and continued eating.

Geralt swallowed hard. Questions. He’d had a list of questions, hadn’t he? On his phone? He pulled his phone out of his pocket and navigated through his various note and writing apps until he found the one where he kept questions for professionals like doctors and lawyers. There, the list for the nanny. He opened it and slid it across the table to Jaskier.

Jaskier picked it up and read the first question out loud. “Do you have education related to caring for children? Actually, yes, my major in college was childcare. I’ve kept up to date on research and techniques, especially for younger children. How long have you been a nanny? About eight years, now; the first child was about ten and was sent to boarding school a year later, and the second child was a pair of twins. They were delightful, but I have very little training for special needs children, so I pointed their parents towards one of my colleagues who is trained. Do you know sign language? A little. I can converse in it, but I’m not an expert.”

Geralt listened hard as Jaskier worked down the list of questions, and grudgingly decided that Jaskier was a good enough fit. There were probably better nannies, but Geralt would never be able to afford them. So, when Jaskier handed the phone back, Geralt nodded and forced himself to say, “Good.”

“Daddy,” Ciri said suddenly, putting her spork down and reaching for him. “Breathe-hugs.”

Geralt obediently stood and picked her up, and hugged her tightly, facing away from Jaskier a little. Breathe-hugs. He kept forgetting his breathing exercises, but hugging Ciri helped him remember to calm down. This was only the fourth time that she had offered breathe-hugs before he thought of them. It made him feel terrible, that he leaned on her so much. But she was also the only thing still holding him to this shitty world.

He shouldn’t use his daughter as an anchor. He really shouldn’t.

After several deep breaths, he was calm enough to put her down again, and sit. He swallowed hard and said, “Thank you for answering my questions.”

Jaskier was frowning slightly. “You’re very welcome,” he replied. “Are you alright?”

Geralt nodded. “Do you have questions?” he asked, hands tightening on his elbows.

“Ah, yes, a few. Do you have any kind of steady income?”

“Yes,” Geralt said. “I get my unemployment check every month.”

Jaskier pursed his lips and frowned more. Then he asked cautiously, “How much will you be out of the house?”

“I… don’t know,” Geralt confessed. “I’m starting an internship on Monday, but I’m still not sure if I have a schedule yet.” That pained him worse than knowing the position was given to him out of pity.

“Paid internship?”

“...No.”

“Oh.” Jaskier tapped his finger on the table and bit his lip, then nodded firmly. “Well! I think we’ll suit well enough. What do you think, sir?”

Geralt blinked, then blurted, “I do too.”

“Excellent.” Jaskier beamed at him. “I��ll be by tomorrow morning to start.”

It was three weeks later and Geralt was a wreck.

Jaskier had started right out with telling Geralt that penning Ciri for most of the day was a terrible idea, and then showed him how to childproof the house.

“Pens are fine if you’re trying to train a puppy,” Jaskier explained, “But children aren’t puppies. She needs room. She needs to explore the house.”

“My father put me in a pen,” Geralt said hesitantly. “I turned out fine.”

Jaskier gave him an unimpressed look. “Nevertheless, Ciri isn’t you. Give her space to play.”

Ciri hadn’t known what to do without her pen, until Jaskier convinced her to play hide-and-seek. Then they had both run all over the house, hiding and laughing and exploring. Geralt’s heart was in his mouth the whole time, as he tried to make sure Ciri was safe and unhurt. The pen had been as much to keep her safe as it was meant to keep her where Geralt could find her.

After that, Jaskier went through the kitchen and declared that he was going to buy some frozen food and fresh veggies.

“Those are expensive,” Geralt blurted, alarmed.

Jaskier shook his head. “Not all of them. Bring Ciri, and I’ll show you the good deals.”

Geralt did not have a car safe enough to drive Ciri in. The one he used to drive was on its last legs, and so he usually either begged a ride from Eskel or took the bus with her. Jaskier frowned a little, and asked, “How long have you had that car?”

Geralt shrugged. “About twenty years,” he said.

So they took the bus, and Jaskier let Ciri sit in his lap and play with his necklace, which held a silver pendant shaped like a lute, with gold designs inlaid on it. They talked about animals, and Geralt kept his head down. The shame from being stared at like he was some sort of creep for having a daughter still roiled in his gut and made him nauseous.

Grocery shopping was strange, because Jaskier kept pointing out things that were cheap and Geralt had to tell him, over and over, in front of other people, “I only have fifty crowns, I can’t afford to spend it on only one week of food.”

Jaskier somehow negotiated him into buying some potatoes, and wretchedness settled on Geralt when he realized he wouldn’t have enough money to buy Ciri a present for two or three months. She had plenty of toys, though, surely she wouldn’t mind?

“Daddy, why are you sad?”

Geralt hugged Ciri closer and kissed her forehead. “I’m not sad, love.”

The internship was more draining than any other job he’d ever had. Everything was too loud, too fast, too hot, too much--but he had to do this. He had to be hired. Because he needed money for Ciri.

Jaskier kept Ciri company, and taught her songs, and bought her workbooks with her favorite cartoon characters. Most evenings, Geralt showered, changed clothes, and then slumped wherever they were and watched. It hurt, honestly, that she was so much happier with Jaskier. But, well, Jaskier was a better person in general.

And then on the third week of everything, Geralt completely broke down.

It was while he was making dinner. His nerveless fingers dropped the butter and the spoon, his knees buckled, and when he was crouched on the floor, rocking on his toes, he let himself whimper a little. He could not cry; he would not cry in front of Ciri. She didn’t deserve to see him be weak like this. But gods, he wanted to sleep, sleep forever, vanish from this planet and become nothing, so he would never feel or hurt or cry or disappoint or scare again.

A large, warm hand settled gently on his back. “You can go lay down,” Jaskier said gently beside him. “I can finish dinner. Go lay down, Geralt. It’s okay.”

So Geralt went to his room, and shut the door and laid down and let himself sob. Worthless, useless, couldn’t even keep a fucking internship long enough to be hired--

He must have fallen asleep, because when he opened his eyes it was late at night. He sniffed, wiped his scratchy eyes, and got out of bed. Maybe there were some leftovers in the fridge. Probably not. Ciri had been eating so much lately, and her energy had gone through the roof. Geralt had to keep cutting down on his own portion so she would have enough. Was that why he was so exhausted and achey lately?

When he reached the kitchen, he blinked.

Jaskier was at the table with a laptop, looking grim. He had papers all over the table, and a thick notepad that he wrote in every few seconds. He looked up at Geralt in the doorway, and managed a tired smile. “Hey,” he whispered. “There’s food in the fridge. Ciri wanted to leave everything, but I convinced her to eat some.”

Geralt nodded and got the leftover soup and fried potatoes out of the fridge, not even bothering to heat them up before spooning some into a bowl and sitting down at the other side of the table to eat. He hurt. But because he wanted noise, any noise, to keep his thoughts away from the evil place in his head, he looked up at Jaskier and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Researching unemployment laws,” Jaskier answered, tapping a few keys and then scribbling on his notepad. “It’s illegal to pay you so little when you have a child. Did you know you’re supposed to get two thousand crowns a month?”

Geralt gaped at him. “Whuh… the lawyers told me I could only have eight hundred,” he replied, feeling another surge of confusion and self-hate boil up in his chest. “Because my brothers have jobs.”

Jaskier looked up sharply, and he looked livid. “They were basing their calculations on your brothers’ incomes?” he demanded.

Geralt flinched, and nodded. “They--they have custody of me,” he explained. “Because a judge ordered when I was nineteen that I have to have a guardian.”

It was Jaskier’s turn to gape. Then he asked, much more gently, “If they are your guardians, why don’t you live with them?”

“Because…” Geralt frowned, trying to remember. “Because the homeowner’s association forbade my brothers from taking me in. So they gave me money to buy this house, and moved to a new apartment. But when I bought the house, some attorneys came by and claimed I was violating court orders, so they took my inheritance.”

“That’s illegal!” Jaskier burst out, aghast. “Why would they do that?”

Geralt’s head was pounding and his breath was getting shorter. He didn’t like thinking about that year. He didn’t like it all. It was a clusterfuck of despair and confusion and terror and he didn’t want to think of it. “I don’t know,” he said, and his voice shook. “I don’t know.”

Jaskier opened his mouth to say something else, then thought better of it, and sighed. “I’m sorry, Geralt,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pried. But now we have some idea of what to do.”

“Huh?”

“Well, you’re being discriminated against, mistreated, and refused the help you need. So.” Jaskier steepled his fingers and grinned, eyes glinting fiercely. “We’re going to tear these fuckers apart.”

A year later, Geralt hated the memories of the confusion and rage of dealing with laws and lawyers and people casually threatening to take Ciri away from him if he didn’t shut up and go away. He hated them with the fury of the planet’s molten core.

But outcomes had been good.

His payments were raised to the legal amount. He was allowed to go to therapy and job training without being threatened. Ciri had new clothes and a new bed and new favorite foods. And Jaskier was not annoying anymore. On the contrary, he had become something much, much better.

Jaskier was still only the nanny. But Geralt had a plan, and it involved the engagement ring he bought on the one-year anniversary of hiring Jaskier.

#Geraskier #Geralt x Jaskier #The Witcher #OOF I could be convinced to expand on this

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matth1w · 5 years

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I was wondering if you could please write a OneShot where reader is Lucifer Morningstar’s best friend and after Chloe discovered his devil face and ran away he goes to reader where she comfort him and he admits she is the devil’s true love? Thank you, I love you 💕

True Love

Pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Reader

Summary: Chloe sees Lucifer’s true face, but doesn’t come back. Being his best friend, he calls you for help. As you comfort him, he realizes he wants more than just your friendship.

Warnings: None

Rating: All

Word Count: 2,289

Note: I was unsure if you wanted this to take place when Chloe saw his face then went to Europe for a month (end of s3/beginning of s4) or at the end of season 4, so I went with the earlier. Thanks for requesting, love! 💕

Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference at the end 👀

As you scrolled through a silly Buzzfeed quiz that promised to tell you what Disney princess you were, Lucifer’s face popped up on the screen. It was a silly photo he had taken after you showed him Zoolander. His blue steel look was iconic to say the least.

You shimmied up the couch and brought the phone to your ear.

“Hey, Luci”

His voice was quiet and broken when he finally spoke.

“She… Can I come over, please?”

Your heart hurt at the sound of your friend’s heartbreak.

“Of course.”

“Good,” he said with a dry chuckle, “Would be awkward if you would have said no seeing as I’m in your driveway.”

You laughed, even sad he still had his antics. “I’ll be right out.”

You didn’t need to hear him say it. You could guess.

She saw his face.

You’ll admit, it was somewhat shocking at first. If by at first, you mean for a brief moment. You had always thought of Lucifer as an angel. Not the Devil. And seeing your friend’s face was no difference.

When you opened your front door you weren’t surprised to see Lucifer. Slouching like a sad puppy. However you were surprised to not see the Corvette.

He saw your eyes move to your strangely empty driveway and chuckled.

“I panicked.”

You looked back to him with a raised eyebrow.

“You… panicked?”

He smiled sheepishly.

“Yes, well, I was distraught as the Detective saw this” he motioned at his face.

“Well not this, but that,”

You nodded and he continued.

“Anyway, I panicked and wanted to see you so I…”

You gave him a look. Hoping he wasn’t going to say what you thought he was going to say.

“I… flew.”

You closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Lucifer Morningstar…”

You sighed and opened your eyes again.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it if anyone saw you.”

You looked up at Luci and smiled.

“Promise not to tell Meni”

He chuckled at your ridiculous nickname for his brother and gave you a warm smile, that faded into a sad one. You grabbed his hand.

“C’mon lightbringer. I got some ice cream and a whole bunch of buzzfeed quizzes.”

You didn’t have to look back as you brought him inside to know he was playfully rolling his eyes and maybe even fake-gagging.

— — —

After an hour of ice cream and stupidly silly online quizzes as promised, you felt the need to go to the bathroom.

You stared at your reflection as you washed your hands, lost in thought, wondering if Chloe would come to terms with Lucifer being well, Lucifer.

You couldn’t explain why some deep part of you wanted her to leave and never come back. Shaking the thought from your head as you did the water from your hands, you cleared your throat, wiped your hands, and walked back out to your living room.

When you walked in, you saw Lucifer sitting on your couch, empty glass in hand.

He simply looked up at you as you walked in. But then he looked away, ashamed.

You walked over to him and knowing words weren’t what he needed, you grabbed the glass from his hand, set it on the table, sat yourself in his lap, and cradled him.

He simply breathed for a moment, sighing from the affection and kindness. And then, it began.

His body was wracked with sobs and he shook underneath you. You held him tight as he held you even tighter, never letting go, placing kisses on his head and rubbing soothing circles on his back.

When Lucifer finally spoke beneath you, it wasn’t what you expected.

“Why… why did my father curse me so? Why does he hate me? My own father?”

He pulled slightly away to look up at you, eyes brimmed red from tears. You looked down at him with pity and pain. It hurt seeing your friend so broken by this.

And hearing him speak the emotions he tried to always lock away or cover with humor… it broke your heart.

You wiped the tears from his cheeks and hair from his warm face, noticing how he leaned into your gentle touch. You then stared deeply into his eyes.

“You are more than your past, Luci. More than any mistakes that caused such hatred. You deserve all the love and kindness there is in the world.”

Your eyes filled with tears, such strong love and pain seeing your friend broken so deeply.

Lucifer smiled just a smidge at your words, then hugged into your chest again.

“Thank you”

Nothing more, nothing less was spoken that night.

Lucifer stayed tight in your embrace, and you never let go. His breathing steadied, first turning into shaky breaths, then deep ones, then finally, light ones, telling you that he had fallen asleep.

You laid back further, resting your head against the pillow. Luci didn’t stir and you closed your eyes for a moment, meaning to only blink but sleep filling your body. Placing one last kiss onto his forehead, you closed your eyes and let yourself rest underneath yourself friend.

— — —

When you awoke, the first thing you noticed was a slight chill. You swore Lucifer would’ve kept you warm.

Once you opened your eyes with a wide stretch, you realized he wasn’t keeping you warm. Because he wasn’t there.

You humphed, but then looked around. His phone was on the table so he must be still here.

Noise from the kitchen confirmed that. You smiled hearing Luci undoubtedly making breakfast. Was tradition after all. Whoever was the guest sleeping over had to make, pickup, or order breakfast.

You laid back down lazily and hummed happily. Despite the situation, it was nice to share a Saturday morning with Lucifer. It had been a while since your last sleepover.

You began drifting off to sleep again when a loud shout stopped that.

“Oh bollucks!”

You stopped yourself from groaning and simply got up to see what mess Lucifer had made this time.

When you walked into your kitchen, Lucifer spun around from his place at the counter, and gave you a big cheerful smile. You couldn’t help but smile back, partially because you were seeing the angel wearing a brightly colored apron.

“Good morning, my dear!” Luci said with a clasp of his hands. Leaning slightly to cover the mess that you were leaning to see.

You looked up at him with an inquisitive, but humored look and he sighed.

“Well, you see,” he began. “I was trying to make waffles and I highly overestimated how much batter that silly machine of yours could handle. So…”

He moved aside and showed you the batter oozing out of the sides of the waffle maker and onto your counter.

You looked at the mess, then back to him and just laughed.

“Oh Lu, I haven’t touched that thing in years. Waffle makers are notorious for making messes.”

You waved your hand and smiled as the waffle maker dinged, signifying its completion. You hugged Luci quickly then walked over to the counter. As you opened the overflowing machine, you saw a golden fluffy waffle (with extra uncooked edges) that smelled so heavenly (no pun intended) you hummed in approval.

Luci came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his head on your shoulders.

“I take that as a good sign?”

You laughed beneath him.

“Definitely.”

— — —

A week later Lucifer invited you over to celebrate. When you arrived with a bottle of champagne, you didn’t know what to expect. It certainly wasn’t his enthusiastic proclamation of

“I quit!”

You looked at him curiously, unsure if he was in one of his self-destructive-pretend-everything-is-fine moods.

“You… quit?”

He huffed and rolled his eyes,

“Yes, darling. You growing old and deaf on me? I quit!”

You just looked at him. Hoping he would continue.

“Detective Douche told me he and…” he paused, “the Detective had put in transfers for Fresno.”

Your eyebrows raised at that but he ignored you, opting instead to continue.

“And well seeing as my former partner had up and left, I thought I would do the same. So,” he extended his arms,

“I quit”

You nodded, taking a moment to ponder it. You then hung your head and laughed.

“Going to find a new job?”

He looked at you like you had grown a second head, “I think not. Though, is your employer hiring?”

You whole heartedly laughed at that, “No way, Luc. You cause enough ruckus every time you bring me lunch.”

He smirked at that, “touché”.

You raised up the bottle in your hand, and smiled up at your friend.

“Congrats, Luci. To unemployment!”

He huffed at your teasing smirk but laughed nonetheless. “Let’s open that up, shall we?”

— — —

During the next few months you had sleepovers, first filled with pizza and ice cream helping him get over what felt like a breakup. You’d both watch cheesy movies. A mix of comedies, dramas, and the classics you made Luci watch so he was ‘cultured’.

And you’d go out. Dancing and drinking at Lux that always led to crashing at his penthouse upstairs. Dragging him to other clubs to only have him protest at the notion until he realized it was your favorite 80’s themed club and was totally different to Lux. (You tried not to say anything when Lux started having decade theme nights once a month shortly after that).

You’d also go out to eat - fancy restaurants, casual restaurants, food trucks that you both gorged on, late night diners, even Taco Bell once or twice.

And you’d also just go out to places. Museums, book stores, antique places, anything and everything.

It became normal for you and Lucifer to spend nearly all weekend together and even some evenings during the week together. It wasn’t unusual to go to Lux with Lucifer or have movie nights but now you were doing mundane domestic things like going grocery shopping together, cleaning your house and his apartment, and even doing laundry together. Though that just consisted of Lucifer making cheeky comments about your under things.

But one day… things changed.

Lucifer had asked if he could come over which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was how nervous he seemed. Like he was hyper aware of everything he did but also lost in thought.

He had staring at your intertwined hands instead of the trashy tv you were mindlessly watching. Since he kept staring through two commercials straight, you decided to say something.

“You know, you can just let go,”

Lucifer jumped slightly at your voice, confirming your suspicions that was he deep in thought.

You squeezed his hand and shifted to face him, surprised to see his deep dark eyes staring back at you.

“You alright, Luc?”

Your eyebrows furrowed with concern as your searched your friend’s eyes.

He closed his for a moment and sighed.

“I’ve been thinking, darling,”

“Never a good sign,” you quipped back.

He smiled lightly at that then frowned slightly.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed our friendship and these past few months together. I don’t think I would have gotten through it quite so easily without you.”

You nodded but took your hand from his, nervous as to what you thought he was going to say next.

“But…?”, you said hesitantly.

He huffed and clasped his hands together, now alone from yours.

“But… I fear…”

You didn’t want to but your eyes started feeling prickly.

He paused and looked at you with pity,

“Oh, darling, there’s no need to cry.”

You nodded but his words did nothing but make you feel worse and cause the tears to fall.

“Darling,” he cooed as he pulled you into a hug.

“Dad, I’m so… ugh” he huffed, holding you close.

He pulled away quickly, “Y/N, look at me.”

You sniffled and brought your eyes to his but quickly looked away. He placed his hand on your cheek, wiping the tears, then lifted your head so you would again meet his eyes.

He was looking back at you with a mixture of emotions you couldn’t read.

“Our time together, well, it’s opened my eyes. I don’t think I’m happy just being your friend.”

He stopped talking and looked at you, searching for any reaction. You simply stared back, your brain unable to process for a moment.

You finally shook yourself out of it and smiled.

“Yeah?” You whispered, voice clearly displaying your hopefulness.

His eyes flickered down to your lips as he leaned in a touch.

“Yes”

You leaned in further but then pulled back and giggled. Lucifer looked somewhat surprised by you pulling away and confused at your giggling.

“What’s so funny, love?” Lucifer asked, genuinely confused.

You giggled again and pressed a finger into his shoulder, “You like me,”

Lucifer smiled at your sing song teasing tone and playfully rolled his eyes.

You continued with your teasing. Your smile bright and overjoyed.

“You want to hug me, you want to kiss me, you want -“

He laughed and grabbed your face once more and pulled you in for a kiss. Your lips melted together and you both couldn’t help the smiles that broke out.

You pulled away ever so slightly so your foreheads remained in contact and opened your eyes. You saw as Lucifer’s long eyelashes fluttered and his adoring eyes met yours.

You pecked his lips quickly again then jumped up, continuing your song and prancing around.

“You think I’m gorgeous…”

Lucifer stared at you and laughed at your silly antics. He had nothing to fear. Being in love with his best friend wouldn’t change a thing.

#lucifer #Lucifer Morningstar #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer x reader #lucifer fic #lucifer request #lucifer reader insert #lucifer morningstar fic #lucifer morningstar reader insert #lucifer morningstar imagine #lucifer morningstar fanfic

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dmsilvisart · 6 years

Text

What SPN brought to my life

Okay so I've had what...5 days to process the announcement.

I was debating typing this so soon or waiting until the end. I have a feeling the next year is going to be daily “the end is near” posts. I don’t want to talk about the end I want to talk about the last 5 years of my life.

Under a cut cuz I rambled a bit:

My sister in law, the sister i talk about most on here, my rock and my best friend was going through a hell of a time 5 years ago, and the five years before that. Hell, from around 2005 until now, if we’re being honest. Extremely Abusive relationship, alcohol to cope didn’t help anything, moving out of the abusive relationship and into her own house with her daughter, more alcohol issues, job loss, unemployment, new job, job loss again. Finding out her daughter was a victim of sexual abuse, restarting her entire life, by changing career paths completely (she went from banking to massage therapy, because she couldn’t help people in banking). Dealing with PTSD caused by everything her abusive relationship and everything her daughter went through. The place that helped her change career paths turned out to be an incredibly toxic environment once they had your money, and a DUI later, she was effectively grounded... and so she left the toxic place, worked in a pizza shop until she found new facility to work in. Even though she is now in a place that she loves, with coworkers who bring out her best, she doesn’t drink to cope anymore (she’s been forced to stop drinking) she’s still climbing out of the hole that she created the decade before now....so how did SPN help this?

Well while she was unemployed in 2015? think it was 15, might’ve been 2014... we spent hours daily binge watching tv, mostly because her being alone was a bad idea. Everything she went through both out of her control and stuff that she did herself that didn’t help her situation, took away her light. She use to be a light up the room person, she became bitter, her thoughts were dark, it wasn’t good. We started with Buffy, which led to Firefly and then Castle. The TNT loop had Bones on before Castle every morning so we started seeing like the last 10 minutes of Bones and so we binged that too. Before Bones was SPN and one day I saw Mark Sheppard’s brilliant mug at the end of an episode and when we were looking for a new show to binge, I suggested that. It had been a show that I always intended to watch and never got around to.

We ended up watching the first 5 episodes one day and I woke up at some miserable hour of the morning to a barrage of text messages, telling me about how Jared was dealing with depression, and this guy named Misha and what character he played and the work he was doing outside of the show, and on and on and on. She has watched all the gag reels even though we weren’t even through season one, She had latched on to these guys with a ferocity I hadn’t seen in her in ages. Especially to Jared’s ideas on mental health and talking about it. It was this that got her to therapy, it was this that made her reevaluate where she wanted to be in her life and make that career change. From there, it all went up, she was excited again, she WANTED to change things. She had her light back. It hasn’t been smooth sailing, but she keeps trying, and eventually her waters will calm, I know they will, because dammit, she’s the most giving caring individual I know and karma has back pay for her.

So SPN gave me my sister back. Besides that HUGE gift to me lets look at the other ripples this show has caused:

It gave me my art back, I was in a bad place myself and doing NOTHING with art at the time. If I got a commission fine, but doing art for fun wasn’t happening.

Somehow I ended up looking up fanfic, I don’t even know how, because I’ve been a part of fandoms since I was 10, and never looked it up before that.

Finding fanfic:

made me want to draw for fun again.

led me to the term “demisexual” which not even my doctor told me about and all of a sudden I didn’t feel like a freak anymore because I didn’t feel sexual arousal like “everyone else”

led me to amazing writers who I now consider friends, some even close friends

SPN led to GISH which led me to Tumblr to watch a Q&A with Misha about GISH.

AO3 and Tumblr collided when I went from one to the other to follow people.

I’ve met so many amazing people here

GISH, AKF etc.:

AKF, Your are not Alone, You Are Enough, all of these, while I use them as reminders for myself, I’ve used them to reach out to people I know were in dire mental states, people in my real life who never heard of SPN and still don’t know about it really, but it’s helped me pull some people up and help them help themselves.

GISH helped me understand that I didn’t need to save the world by myself. The world use to crush me. I couldn’t take the horribleness of it. I couldn’t watch the news, it would leave me immobilized. I felt like all the problems were beyond me. I was too small to help.

Thanks to all these charity campaigns, GISH stuff and similar things these actors have taken part in I've seen that little things help and grow and DO change the world. I finally understood that I could help, in whatever capacity I was capable of at the time and the kindness would spread. I didn’t feel useless anymore.

Think about it, the actors, creators, everyone involved could’ve just done their job and went home, they didn’t have to do all that ^^^^, they chose to and so...

I want to find the good, I intentionally seek out the good in everything now, to keep a bright outlook to keep the positive spreading, even if it’s just a “hi how are you to someone, or a smile, if there’s no other physical way I can help at that point.

Like a pebble in a puddle, this little show (it’s actors and the example they lead with) that wasn’t suppose to be so impactful has created ripples that have LITERALLY improved the world!

This cast and crew never had to share their private lives with any of us, but they chose to, they never had to do anything other than show up to film and appear where they needed to for PR, but they went so far past all of that...for 15 years.

The pebble that is SPN has rippled out to improve my outlook, my sister’s outlook, has helped us help others, has sparked my creativity again by sparking it in the minds of so many other writers and artists, those writers and artists have become friends, some even confidants, all of them have created works that got me through shitty times.

When I said SPN salted and burned my other fandoms, I started watching for Mark Sheppard but stayed for everything else, I meant it. It took years for me to want to watch or get invested in anything else again. I’m glad to have found it and everything/ everyone who came along with it.

I wish this cast and crew all the joy, all the blessings, happiness, and peace. I hope whatever roads they down next are successful for them, on screen or off. If they do nothing but hide away and enjoy their families for the foreseeable future, good for them, enjoy it, they deserve it.

Sorry for rambling, I had to get it all out...

#spn #season 15 #season 14 #akf #GISH #family don't end in blood

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chatting-leaves · 6 years

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Thursday September 20th: Part 1 of 2

Genre: Personal. Very thinly veiled fiction.

The last time September 20th was on a Thursday, I woke up feeling very optimistic. That morning was to be the first morning of a new job assignment I had taken from a small staffing agency, my first work in nearly three months. Eight months earlier, my wife and I had moved to the northern suburbs of Boston, her home, after she had complained of feelings of homesickness and ennui and she felt she had nothing to lose by going back home. While in theory neither she - or even myself, who had been out of work prior - had nothing to lose, in practice we had everything to lose.

On that morning, I awoke in the guest bedroom of her grandparents house, our residence since we had moved as a means of having some place to stay at the outset. Instead, our lives had become what I would refer to as a “sadistic game of Wack-a-Mole” in which our employment statuses varied - first I had a contract position, then she finally got a relevant job four months after our arrival, then my position expired - and kept us from getting a place of our own. When this job arrived, I was told that it was a “sure thing” by the woman at the hiring agency; that while it was at the outset for only one month, there was “a very, very good chance” that it would become a permanent position and that my new employer, a semiconductor startup, was “a very strong operation that liked [my] background.” Over the ensuing eight months, we had become a bit more cynical, a little more than a bit chubbier, and a lot more worn down from having had little privacy for most of our first year of marriage and we were wanting to get a place of our own. After a shower and breakfast, I packed some snacks and a lunch and made my way out the door, walking down our residential street with signs for the upcoming elections littering our street, a byproduct of sorts of toxic political culture. Amidst the signs before reaching the main road came another form of litter echoing an alarming trend, discarded syringes and needle covers left by those abusing injectable drugs such as heroin. At the main road, I waited for a bus into Boston and upon boarding then weaved through an assortment of working class areas that could be seen by some more exclusionary types as the epitome of the stereotype of the “Townie”: rarely traveled, insular, working class, yet also a bit elitist in terms of town status and their defence of local sports teams. This commute is something I had done too many times to count when I had previously worked and on other days when I had taken a day off to ward off cabin fever and to try to have some semblance of the life we had left prior in a compact, accessible neighborhood of Washington, DC where everything I needed was either within walking distance or accessible by copious amounts of transit. We worked out way into Boston, eventually reaching the notorious highway of Route 1, through the twists of the post-industrial Chelsea before what some called Boston’s “other Green Monster”, the Tobin Bridge. At that time, it was a hunk of vaguely green metal pockmarked with copious amounts of rust where we sat stopped as the morning rush meandered its way through the toll booths to be waved through en route to our eventual arrival. After that point, I went through a similarly meandering journey via subway - Green Line to the historical Park Street, then Red Line to the bustling South Station, then a transfer to a confused mode known as the Silver Line, a mode often derided as a “bus that acts like a train” which would bring me to the front door of the building where I was to work. In my two weeks of waiting for this job, a period which my start date had been postponed twice as I was originally to have started the Thursday prior, I had never made the decision to do a dry run to see how this commute would have worked out and once the bus dropped me off I was a bit in shock at the scale of where I was working. I had known that it was in a relatively isolated of the South Boston Waterfront - or the “Seaport District” in modern marketing lingo - but the mass of the buildings once used as warehouses seemed a bit stunning as I tried to find exactly where to go in the linear maze I had fallen upon.

Having a few minutes to kill before my shift, I made my way to a restroom to give a final check of how I looked to make sure I made an excellent first impression. While the email I had received stated that business casual was the code, I decided to side with a pair of suit pants and a nice sweater I owned with a green and red argyle pattern. This choice was giving deference to the weather that morning, unseasonably cool and a harbinger of the coming autumn set to start officially the next day. I then made it upstairs to find an office full of people mainly in t-shirts and jeans, typical for a technology startup but I always liked being one better as to set a good example. After asking for the woman who was to be my boss, Kathryn, I was given the terse word that she was in a meeting and that I should wait a few minutes. Once she returned, someone spoke with her and then brought her my way. Without given any sort of greeting or salutations, Kathryn went immediately to business.

“Can you put together those three chairs?,” Kathryn said gesturing to three unopened boxes. “I’ll give you 30 minutes to an hour to do so. The sooner you finish these, the better because we need these chairs.” I responded affirmatively but withheld the truth - that I had never put office furniture together in my life and that the job description furnished to me had mentioned nothing of the sort. I will gladly say that I am a team player and will go above and beyond the call of duty, the description had been given had a lot of phone calls, emails, editing correspondence such as press releases, nothing of the sort about light furniture assembly. Not wanting to show weakness or failure, I spent the better part of the next hour trying to put together said chairs and succeeded in doing so. After finishing, Kathryn barked another order at me.

“Can you make some construction paper footballs for the football watch party on Sunday?” I had been told at the outset that the entire office had a Fantasy Football league and that they often had day-long watch parties during the NFL season. This Sunday made things convenient as the Patriots were playing in the night game, viewed nationwide and one of a handful of games each week seen all around the world. As with furniture assembly, arts and crafts was never one of my strong points yet once again I did what I needed to do even if it was well outside my job description. While doing my best to get these assembled, both via creation and by writing the names of employees and other guests on them, I started to feel some doubts about the job as twice they had given me duties well beyond what I had prepared myself for; in fact, in assembling the furniture I had started to sweat as I obviously had not dressed for such a task. When done, Kathryn directed me to a computer and left a copy of their corporate compliance handbook with some notes attached.

“We’ve had to update our policy on bringing dogs into the office. Can you edit this in? Here’s your login,” she said while also giving me a piece of paper with a username - my name, last name heavily mangled - and temporary password. After helping myself to some complimentary pretzels and a soda, a hallmark of a startup leaving free food and drink for their employees, I tried to log in only to find the username the had created for me did not work and after multiple tries brought the matter to Kathryn who claimed that she would have it sorted out during my lunch later that day. Logging me into a guest account, I made all the edits that I had been given as well as doing some general copy editing as there were some typographical and grammatical errors lingering in the bowels of that handbook. At around 12:30, two-and-a-half hours into a six-and-a-half hour shift, I was given a request.

“Can you go to lunch?,” Kathryn asked.

“It’s a little early to take my lunch, I was going to hold off until I was completely done working on this,” I responded, knowing that I liked to take my lunch closer to the mid-point of my shift to break up the day easier.

“I really want you to take it now,” Kathryn fired back.

“Okay. I brought a lunch in with me which I put in the fridge. Let me just go get it since I don’t need anything else,” I continued.

“I really need you to leave for lunch. There’s an Au Bon Pain two buildings over. I’m sure you can get there, eat, and get back in a half hour. Your work can wait,” Kathryn insisted.

Under protest, I relented and took the walk over to Au Bon Pain, a bakery cafe with the typical assortment of salads, sandwiches, baked goods, and the like. While walking, I realized that “two buildings over” was a good five minute walk given the massive scale of each building and upon arriving I discovered that this literally was the only viable lunch spot for a pretty large community of workers as there were no other establishments open at that time. Not being a fan of salad and not wanting to hold up the line, I ended up deciding on a container of lobster macaroni and cheese from a small self-serve bar and a baguette as it was the easiest option to get, eat, and run back. This lunch set me back about $10, not much to the established people there but for someone who had not worked in three months was a relatively large sum as by that point I was not even getting unemployment due to a conflict that surfaced right before taking this job. As I ate, I wondered if my being forced out of the office had a ulterior motive to it such as ending the assignment; a prior non-temporary job I had did this to set up a meeting to let me go due to having less resources to support my position than originally thought. “Surely a job would not let someone go after only two hours,” I thought as I finished my lunch and made a mad dash back to to the office. Upon returning, I found a slip of paper with my fixed username and a temporary password. Once again, it did not work and once again Kathryn put me back on a guest account to finish editing the handbook then to add some more names to a mailing list they maintained. By 2:30 that afternoon, I had exhausted all of the work I was given only to find that she was in a meeting and the only advice given to me was to “wait for her”. For the next half hour, I sat and waited while trying to not play with my charging phone, my fear being that had I done so it would be used as just cause to end the assignment. Upon Kathryn’s return, she came with news.

“I think they fixed your username,” she said. Once again, I tried only to find that the username in the system still did not exist. After a couple of minutes, she ended up relenting.

“You can go home now if you want,” she offered. “We really don’t have anything else left here and we can just start fresh on Monday.” Going into this, both she and the agency knew that I had a standing commitment that required I not work on the 21st - we had plans to go to Vermont for our first anniversary.

“Are you sure I’ll be here on Monday,” I asked.

“Yes. As much as today seemed rocky we really will need the help starting next week,” Kathryn concluded. I went to get most of my stuff but I felt confident to leave my lunch - a package of frozen pizza bites - in the freezer for the weekend. After that, I went to catch a bus home, about an hour later reaching my front door before the afternoon rush intensified. As optimistic as my departure that day was, I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something might be slightly awry given what had transpired. While packing my clothes for the imminent vacation, I wondered what would happen when the agency inevitably called to see how my first day was and mulled giving them a preemptive all to get it over and done with.

Little did I know what was set to transpire.

#writing #personal #temporary job #lies #boston #thinly veiled fiction

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faithfulnews · 4 years

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Finance & Giving Considerations During COVID-19 — Episode 140 | The Unstuck Church Podcast

3 Conversations with Pastors Leading Through the Crisis

If you enjoy this episode, subscribe on your device for more: iTunes RSS Google Play Stitcher Spotify

I’m going to keep encouraging church leaders to look for opportunities in the midst of this crisis, and I believe there are opportunities for longer-term financial health to be found at most churches.

Last week, I hosted a webinar with some friends to talk about the opportunities we’re seeing. (You can watch a replay of the webinar here, if you’d rather watch than listen.)

Amy and I hosted Rick Holliday from North Point Ministries (Alpharetta, GA), David Vaughan from Whitewater Crossing Church (Cleves, OH) and Scott Moore from Eastridge Church (Covington, GA) for a conversation on how real churches are responding to this crisis financially.

There were loads of practical examples and best practices shared. We heard from so many pastors that it helped them reframe the situation and start taking next steps, that we decided to share a portion of the webinar with podcast listeners, as well.

So, with that in mind, in this episode, we dive into:

Talking about giving in the midst of a crisis, and how we should interact with donors in this season

How to communicate with older people in your congregation who have been less inclined to use online giving in the past

Responding to higher ministry needs during a crisis, when giving is also being impacted

How to approach expense reductions while still carrying out the church’s mission and vision

How to identify and embrace opportunities for longer-term financial health

When interacting with donors during this time, ask how you can meet their needs. #unstuckchurch [episode 140] Click to Tweet

Proactively assess the “new” methods you are using during this crisis for their potential to carry forward into the future. You may find significant long-term savings as you embrace new methods. #unstuckchurch [episode 140] Click To Tweet

Leader Conversation Guide

Want to take this conversation back to a staff or senior leadership team meeting?

Our Show Notes subscribers get a PDF download that recaps the episode content and includes a discussion guide you can print out and use at an upcoming meeting.

Opt-in here and get the Leader Conversation Guide for this episode, as well as access to the archive. hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "2343950", formId: "a40514d1-7e6e-4c74-ae0e-08efa70c2fa2" });

Let Us Know on Social Media

We use #unstuckchurch on Twitter, and we start a real-time conversation each Wednesday morning when the episode drops. We’d really love to hear from you during this time:

How can we be praying for you as a lead and your church?

What stories can you share of ways churches are responding well during this crisis and focusing on opportunities instead of loss?

You can follow me @tonymorganlive and The Unstuck Group @unstuckgroup. If Facebook is where you spend your time, I’m there, too.

Links & Resources from the Episode

Coronavirus Response Resources for Pastors

30% off Online Course Open enrollment and store resources

Asking to Ask Email Template

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Particularly on iTunes, your ratings and reviews really do help more pastors discover the podcast content I’m creating here. Would you take a minute to share your thoughts? Just open the the podcast on iTunes on your phone or computer, click Ratings & Reviews, and leave your opinion.

Transcript

Sean (00:02): Welcome to The Unstuck Church podcast, where each week we’re exploring what it means to be an unstuck church. The coronavirus crisis has quickly brought many financial challenges to churches. Talking about and managing money has gotten increasingly difficult. On this week’s podcast, Tony and Amy host a conversation with three leaders who are navigating this crisis in their local churches. Before you listen, make sure you get the show notes. You can get them every week in one email along with the resources to go with this week’s conversation and access to our archive of podcast resources. Go to theunstuckgroup.com/podcast to subscribe. Now let’s join this week’s conversation with Tony, Amy and our panel.

Amy (00:45): Tony, we recently hosted a webinar with three great church leaders who are overseeing how their church responded financially during this crisis. Why did you choose those specific leaders to be in the webinar with us?

Tony (00:56): Yeah, so there were three different leaders from three really great churches, but all unique churches. First we had Rick Holliday. He oversees central services for North Point Ministries and he’s just giving, I think, a wealth of experience in our panel conversation about how churches, not just large churches like North Point, but really churches of any size need to be approaching the crisis that we’re in now and specifically from a financial perspective. We also had David Vaughan. David’s the senior pastor of Whitewater Crossing Christian Church there in the Cincinnati area, and David for years that I’ve known him, he’s not only a great leader, he’s a great vision-caster. And when you listen to what he has to share from our panel conversation, number one, you’re probably going to laugh because of some of the things that he shared. But he really helps senior pastors think about how to communicate, especially in a situation like this. And then the third panelist was Scott Moore. Scott has become a good friend of yours and mine, Amy, at a church near Atlanta, but outside of Atlanta. It’s a more rural community, and because of that, East Ridge Church, it’s a great church, and they’re actually doing multisite in a more rural setting. But because they’re in a more rural setting, they also are reaching multi-generations, and with that some older generations. And I really wanted Scott’s input in this conversation so that there would be a better understanding of how to communicate, especially with folks that are older and maybe not as familiar with technology and online giving and tools like that.

Amy (02:51): Well this may be obvious, but share why this conversation is so important for the church right now.

Tony (02:57): Well, needless to say, talking money even in normal times, can be very challenging. Just how do we help people understand stewardship and generosity and why giving is so important? So even in normal circumstances that’s a challenge. But in this crisis, especially because so many people are in different places, I mean for a lot of people, at least their net worth has come down substantially during the season, and then others more directly are unemployed. They’re in a challenging situations providing for their families. And yet, it’s still important for us in the church to communicate what’s happening financially because it’s still requires dollars for us to be able to provide the ministry we are, especially in this time when churches need to be providing ministry to people that are hurting. So, in addition to that, the giving topic, churches are trying to figure out how do we reduce expenditures, and then I’ve suggested even though we’re in the midst of a crisis now, I think it’s important for us to think not only about ministry strategy once the crisis is behind us, but also from a financial perspective, I think there are opportunities even in the midst of this crisis for churches to get to a healthier financial position so that they’re stronger coming out of this as well.

Amy (04:28): All right, well let’s go ahead and dive into the conversation on giving and finances in crisis with the panel.

Tony (04:35): We’re going to dive right in. The first topic we’re going to hit today is how do we talk about giving in the midst of this crisis? And like I mentioned earlier, I mean, just talking about money when life is normal is a challenge for a lot of us. We want people to steward God’s resources. We want people to be generous. And, for me personally, I just know how God’s used that discipline of giving to further my relationship with Jesus through the years. And yet people are facing financial challenge right now. We just heard this morning in the news that now close to 10 million people have filed for unemployment in just the last two weeks. So, this is devastating certainly for the people in our congregations as well. So Rick, I’m going to put you on the spot first this afternoon. How in the world do we interact with our congregation and then more specifically with the people that are financially supporting our ministry in this season?

Rick (05:37): Yeah, it’s a great question and it’s really difficult, Tony, because, I was talking to some friends today. They both happen to be in a position where they’re not as impacted by this. And they were like, you should be asking us for money. And I was like, well, you’ve got to understand 10 million people had filed for unemployment or single moms and others that we ask, they’re going to feel guilty. So it’s a very nuanced conversation that you have to have. So I think just being honest, we should not hide from the fact that our church has needs, but we should not also put people on the spot and put them in a spot where they can’t possibly participate. We lean toward gratitude and thanking people for the faithful support that they’ve had for us, and we also lean by focusing into what we want for our congregants and our attendees, not what we want from them. And so recently we had a gratitude campaign that we were embarking on one of our campuses at Gwinnett Church. And we changed it to just what can we do for you and how can we pray for you? We had some remarkable responses. If I could, I’d like to read a couple of album. This went out on Instagram. The first one was, someone said, “Wow, does your church do what my church does? Call and check up on you and ask how they can pray for you during this time. My church does @gwinnettchurch, @JeffreyHenderson, this world is forever a better place because of you.” I mean, they felt love and acceptance in honestly a very big church. And then the second one, “I just got a call from Alex at Gwinnett Church to see how my family was doing and just to check in and ask how she could pray for us. Heart, heart, heart. Thank you, Alex. I needed this today. I love my church #forGwinnett,” which is our local marketing campaign in Gwinnett County. So I just think if we do that, and then we’re honest about how we’re using money to support our family members in our local community and our church, and then let our need be made known in that way, that we’re being responsible with their money, people that can, will respond in our experience.

Tony (07:38): Yeah. And Rick on that note, I think a good example of that this past week, Andy sent a note to the entire church talking about how kids’ ministry and student ministry is still leaning in and really working hard during the season, and they’ve completely reshaped how they do kids and student ministry. But the impact that area of the church is having right now just illustrates how the money is still being invested for good kingdom work during this season.

Rick (08:10): Yeah, it’s interesting. I know we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but we’re having about the same participation levels in children in student ministry virtually as we’ve been having physically, which is really amazing.

Tony (08:21): Yeah. So we’ll get to more of that here in a moment. Scott, what are you doing, specifically I mentioned you’re in a little bit more rural area and I know a little bit more about your church, too because Amy and I have interacted with your ministry through the years, and so though you have a multigenerational church there is definitely some representation from the older generations in your church. So when you’re communicating with your congregation, how do you specifically help the older people in your congregation, who may have been in the past, less inclined to use online giving and do you have any early wins that you can share along those lines?

Scott (09:04): Well, I think going along with what Rick said, I think first thing we have to do is approach it from a shepherding point of view and not from a survival mindset, you know. I mean it’s a real crisis that we’re in, but we’re trying to communicate to them, Hey, what can we do for you? How are you doing? Just by checking in on them regularly, what physical needs? Cause a lot of these, you know, some of them are widows, they live by themselves and they’re scared. And so we are trying to comfort them in that way. But also too, I heard Richard Blackaby say this I think last week, when we’re communicating with them, we’re trying to say, “Hey, when this is over,” you know, “when we get through this.” And I think the reason that phrase is so important is we’re trying to offer them hope that this isn’t going to last forever. But also the question is who do you want to be on the other side of it? And so, like you said, Tony, a few minutes ago, giving has been one of those disciplines in our life that have helped us grow in our trust with the Lord. And so we’re trying to just keep that message out there. But also, as far as getting them to try online giving, we are trying everything: email, sending videos out, social media, again email also. But what we have found, even though they may be reluctant to online giving, every single one of our seniors text. They love to text. And so we’re pushing, you know, text to give also. And so as far as early wins, you know, this is our second week. We’ve not seen the numbers of who gave online for the first time this week, but last week we did see eight first time online givers. And so our text to give yet we haven’t seen any changes yet, but we are seeing more people begin the online giving.

Tony (10:50): That’s encouraging. Very good. All right, David, one thing I’ve always appreciated about you is a lot of senior pastors I work with are really gifted when it comes to casting vision and then connecting generosity with vision. And I shouldn’t have been surprised when I started to hear stories about how you’ve been communicating with your congregation during this season. That again, you were leading with strength in this area, and I’ve always appreciated about that. But how do you talk about giving in this season, when there are so many people that are being personally impacted either directly by the virus or indirectly because of layoffs in this season?

David (11:34): Yeah, great question. I didn’t have any of this in Bible college. Probably most of the guys who are pastors watching this, you know, it took me a while to figure out my three main jobs are raising men, morale and money, and all three are connected. And so when a crisis like this happens, man, you better be good at casting vision to all three of those. And so I haven’t figured out yet if people are following me or chasing me. I think there’s a little bit of both. So you guys could probably relate to that. So for me, it is about, I don’t know where I got this along the way, but whenever there’s a crisis in anything like this, I kind of default back to an axiom, “Trust God and tell the people,” Trust God, tell the people. The second line was, you can’t have any outcome if you don’t have any income. So to me, I’m trusting God fully, but I’m going to work and tell the right people, the right thing at the right time. So in my mind, the way I approach it, I’m going to target or tailor-make my asking of men and women for money in the context of where they are. Are they in a season of shortage or a season of surplus? And you know, as everybody has already said, you have got different categories, different people in different categories. Rick alluded to that. So I kind of look at them as non-givers or reluctant people, and boy, they’re going to have a different message. And I’m choosing to believe, this may be the naive, Kentucky David coming out, but I’m choosing to believe that people are not giving, not because they’re stingy, it’s because they’re strapped. So they’re in a season of shortage. So how can we be the church? But then casual givers are another category. Thoughtful givers we would classify another kind, and then really gifted givers who are affected with their net worth, but their self worth is still intact to the degree and their net worth that they’re able to bless. So, you cannot be a holy hinter in this season and this crisis. You’ve got to say what is going on. Trust God, but tell the people. So, and that’s probably another podcast on how to approach the high-capacity givers. But early on, a couple of weeks ago when I saw this storm brewing, emailed our highest givers who I have a relationship with, and it was more of an asking to ask email. Hey, I don’t know where this is going to go. I don’t know where and how much I’ll need your help, but could I email you the Monday after Easter, tell you where we’re at and you pray about if you’re in a position to help, and overwhelmingly positive response. I’ll link that email template to you, Tony, and the guys can share that.

Tony (14:24): We’ll definitely share that.

David (14:26): It decreased the stress on me knowing I had in my pocket, a group of people who are dedicated to the mission that they will allow me to ask then. And that has been really, really helpful.

Tony (14:41): And David, just to follow up on that, what I’ve noticed even before this crisis is people that are generous with their time or their money or both, when there’s a need, an obvious need, they’re kind of waiting for their leader to ask them how can I participate? How can I help? And so I love the fact that you took the initiative.

David (15:02): Yeah, they’re already used to being asked. This is something pastors got to get over. Everybody’s asking, but you’re asking for something beyond you. So man, learn to be a master asker. Tailor make it to the groups that you are talking to. Cause they’re going to hear it with a different filter depending on where they are in a season of shortage or surplus.

Tony (15:28): I’m glad you enunciated that appropriately.

David (15:31): Yeah, you gotta be careful.

Amy (15:37): David, you’ve got a line for everything. That’s one of the things I love about you.

David (15:41): Yeah. And I stole them from so many people that I don’t remember anymore. So I just act like they’re mine.

Amy (15:46): That’s right. That’s right. Well, let’s switch gears guys. I think we should talk about how churches are approaching changes in their budget right now, including things like how they’re pulling back on expenses while trying not to sacrifice any of the ministry opportunity that’s out there. So Scott, let me start with you on this one. For you, has there been a shift in giving that for you, you’ve had to change your expenditures? What have you had to react to so far?

Scott (16:15): Yeah, the change in giving has been huge. So the first week, we had half of what normally comes in, what, you know, what is needed for the budget. And so, we were expecting that, and I thank God we got a great, elder board. We’ve got a great executive pastor in Trey, who has really managed our finances well. But still, when you see half come in than what normally comes in, it’s still a hit to the system. But we had, speaking of faithful givers and leaders, so on Tuesday, I got a phone call from one of our givers and he, you know, he’s probably one of our, he’s a very generous giver, you know, to the church, and he’d already given, and he saw the budget come in and he said, Hey, I want to give some more. So he gave a $2,500 check, you know, online. And then I got a phone call on Thursday that someone who’s always just been faithful and consistent, they gave a $27,500 gift online. And so the first week we came in half of what we normally get, and the second week, we came in one and a half times what we normally get. And so, yeah, we’ve seen, you know, doing this right here, but it just speaks to me, you know, it is God’s church and I think what David said too. Leaders are watching the giving, you know? And so I think it is very important to ask, but I’ll tell you what, it was just an encouragement, you know, to see that. What are we doing? We went ahead, one of our members called us and he’s in banking cause we have about a $10,000 every month. And he said, Hey, you know, you can call your bank and they’ll defer your mortgage for three months. And so that right there is one thing we’ve done, and that saved us about $30,000 coming up. Also, we’re looking at suspending just outside contracts, like cleaning. Right now, nobody’s coming to the building and probably won’t now for another, you know, eight weeks. So that’s a contract that we’ve suspended. Lawn care, places begin look pretty ragged but the checkbook is not. And so, we’re thankful for that. And then also we’re just looking at, you know, garbage removal, anything on the outside that doesn’t affect us ministering to people, you know, because all those dollars do represent people. And then this, every homeowner probably doing this, but we’ve cut our thermostats back, and that’s probably going to save us another, you know, $10,000, you know, over the next three months as well. So those are some of the things that we’re doing right now.

Amy (18:43): That’s good. That’s good. David, for you, you know, the needs for ministry are higher in crisis, but giving is likely being impacted. So how about you? How are you responding?

David (18:56): Yeah, there is no doubt in my mind and our team’s mind, we’re thinking strategy and opportunity first, then staffing and programming along those mission critical pathways. So I think it’s an opportunity for guys who need to make changes to make them now, and everyone is much more understandable. And so you don’t want to be disingenuous. I think pastors put off necessary, but difficult conversations in regular time. But this is the time to speak up. But I kind of approach it as a position of opportunity. Don’t have a scarcity mindset, have an abundance mentality, but, use this time to figure out what is the mission critical pathway of the church. What is it that we are really about? And so I think what crisis does is it bumps you from your comfort zone to your creative zone. So be creative, but people are watching how you budget your money, how you spend your money like never before. High cap givers as well as people who’ve lost their jobs are saying, well, what is the church doing? So I agree with Todd Harper. I wrote this down yesterday, from Generous Giving. He says, “Generosity is the new apologetic.” That is so true. And I think that’s what Scott and Rick are saying that, you know, you can’t be good news without having good deeds. So I think this is the time to double down on the people who need it the most, and I think you’re asking, as I already said before, is geared toward people who already love the church and want to help. And boy, this is like the best opportunity in my lifetime to truly be asked to. Where people are sharing, knowing and being known, loved and being loved, normal broke people. I’m not talking about the normal strain, pastors will understand that — people who always seem to be broke. I’m talking about the millions now who are used to be on the giver in. Now they have to humble themselves to receive. This is the time to be the church. And so for me, that’s the thoughts that I lean into.

Amy (21:15): Have you or you, Scott, have you redeployed any staff away from what they were doing to put them on the most critical ministry areas right now?

David (21:24): Scott, you want to go first?

Scott (21:27): Yeah, sure. You know, we had this conversation yesterday. Some of our staff are very hands on in what they do, a very specific ministries. And some of those things, because we’re not meeting together on Sundays or Thursday nights, is not happening. But right now we’ve redeployed them. Hey, we’re all shepherds right now. You know, we’re calling our people where, you know, and not just a text. You know, some people would rather have a text. Let’s be hands on and let’s make sure, I think it was Rick that was saying that about Gwinnett Church, you know, let’s call our people, let’s make sure we’re loving them. So we’ve redeployed them in that way. And also two, the whole online church. Before, online church for us was a way you could be part of the live service. Now it’s our only service. And so now we’re looking at redeploying people how they can interact with people as a service is going on.

David (22:17): You know, we have also done the same. We’ve just said, this is our highest priority the next 90 days is church online, community church at home. It’s member congregational care, and it’s a life center, which is our hands and feet of Jesus in the community. And if everybody doesn’t fit in there, we’re going to have to figure out how to put you in there. I had this amazing thought. You know, it takes me a while, maybe cause I’m from Kentucky, but this is the first time in my lifetime I remember preachers or church staff ever truly having Sunday off that they could take as a Sabbath. And those Saturdays, you know the sabbath, I get all that. I did go to bible college, but anyway, I mean think about it. Any y’all watching any of The Unset Group? Can you remember a time when you could get up, have a cup of coffee, worship, pray, spend time with your family on a Sunday, like never before. So what I tried to tell our staff is, look, I know you struggle with a sabbatical or Sabbath before. Take Sunday. We may need you this week. But I mean, take advantage of it. And that’s what I think there are opportunities more than obstacles. And I think that has to be conveyed to your people. But you got to redeploy people. They can, our staff can be benevolence or they can be employed. But you can’t pay somebody just because you like them. You gotta be strategic. And that’s another podcast setup Tony’s so good at having. So they need your heart, but people are how you spend your money in the church because they are having to do that, and they’re a little suspect if you don’t do it strategically.

Amy (23:53): David, I’m having the opposite problem with my husband taking a sabbath. For years, I worked during the week, and then he worked over the weekend, and now we’re together 24/7, so how long will this last?

David (24:03): And no football for you.

Amy (24:07): Thank you. Yeah, we’re praying about the football season. Hey Rick, let me get your thoughts on this one. How just practically should churches be reducing expenses while they’re still carrying out their mission and vision? What ideas do you have?

Rick (24:22): Well, Scott and David have hit a lot of that. But I will quote the great theologian Rahm Emanuel here who said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” And so not to be awful here, but if you have been contemplating changes, you absolutely should prioritize keeping your best people ,and now’s the time to make some changes. And I know that sounds awful, but if you have to reduce, don’t feel like you have to be egalitarian and treat everybody the same. You absolutely should keep your best performers, and you absolutely should prioritize letting you’re not as good performers go. And I know that can sound terrible, but to me it’s a stewardship issue, and God gave us resources to utilize in order to use them for the most effective spread of the gospel possible. And if you have people that are hindering you from doing that and you’ve been worried about doing something about them because who they’re married to or whatever position they’ve held, now’s the time to change that. So that’s one thing. The second is something these guys have already mentioned. Focus on your opportunities now. For us, those are online and groups and this very well could be a monumental time, and it could change the way church in the U S and around the world is done. And we need to be paying attention to what’s happening and where the new opportunities are. And we need to be moving resources. So we’re doing that. We spend a lot of money, you know. If you’ve been to one of our campuses, you know, we spend a lot of money on physical environment creation, and a lot of that’s not happening these days. And so we’re able to take some of those resources and slide them into digital opportunities and other ways to reach into the community and to be generous to ramp up our care efforts. We already, for us, we’ve given away over the last 12 years, over $50 million to our local partners. People that run food pantries and clothes closets and all of that sort of thing. And I’m not saying that to brag, I’m saying to say we’ve made a financial investment in the community. Now dollars are needed, but right now because of the social distancing rules, volunteers are needed. So figuring out how to plug into key ministries in your area, then help them help the community, will pay off big time longterm in your community because you will be seen as a community partner and advocate in ways that other people that just mind their own business won’t be seen. So I think those are some things and then look for all the other things. Scott ran through a great list of cutting back on energy costs, differing maintenance. We’ve pressed pause on non-essential hires, and we’re figuring out how to redeploy assets in our organizations right now. Don’t hire an outside contractor. You know, find somebody internally that is less utilized than people, and right now, you probably had a model that ran really well and ran, and you had everybody fairly evenly utilized. Right now our content creation people are slammed. Our physical environment creation people are, in some cases, under utilized. So try to figure out, I think you asked Amy, how do we reallocate some of those people? Maybe somebody who’s got a graphic design background that could help in that area instead of hiring a service out or whatever it might be. Lots of people can run video cameras. And if not that, then supplement the things that, you know. Say our digital team is running just crazy hair on fire right now. How can we do bureaucratic things for them that free them up to use their specialized talents in a unique way in this season? So I just think maximizing the resources we have, diminishing our expenses and paying attention to opportunities. And I would say even prioritizing, giving up something we used to do, to chase a new opportunity because God may unveil a new way to do something in this season that you weren’t open to before. And there’s lots of those that are coming to the forefront, and I think it might even be the season to try something new. And to David’s point, having a key connection to resourced individuals in your church and not having a broadcast message that says, give, but have it to these resourced people that can give, and you know what? They love to give based on an investment mentality. If you go to them and say, if you could give me $25,000 I can do this with it. That rings the bell of a resource person in the way it doesn’t always ring the bell of someone who’s giving out of their income at a lower amount because they’re used to thinking in terms of ROI and investment return, and that language right now, I agree with David. You should not be bashful, but you should be careful who you talk to in that way. But when you are talking to that person, talk boldly because God may be giving you an opportunity in your community you’ve just not had up until now.

Tony (28:55): That’s very good. And Rick, your thoughts there actually lead into this final section that I wanted to talk about this afternoon, which is about embracing the opportunity for longer term financial health. Even while we’re in the midst of this crisis, what are some things that we could be doing so that once this is behind us, the church is in a better place financially. And David, I think want to start with you on this one. From your position, what could churches be doing today in the midst of this crisis to better position themselves for financial health after this is behind us?

David (29:33): Yeah. I think during a storm and after the storm, when we pivot to whatever’s next, obviously communication is critical. People are down on what they’re not up on. So over communicate. I think most of our pastors underestimated their communication platforms, even their online giving platform. But I would say build relationships now in this storm that you will lean into after the storm. Even for those who are not able to financially give, they will remember that you cared. And then those who are high cap people, leaders or givers, they will come through for you now and maybe they’ll come through at year end. I checked on one of our high capacity givers who ironically did what Rick was saying. His organization here in town had needed to make some changes, and he was so afraid of hurting some feelings, so he went ahead and announced it and everybody accepted it because of the current crisis. So I just texted and said, how are you doing? And he said, it’s so nice to hear from you just asking how I was doing more than asking for something. What he doesn’t know is I’m going to ask for something later. But anyway, he knows that too, but it’s nice to be asked. And so I would say continue to build important relationships with people. It’s relationship, it’s relationship, it’s relationship. And I personally think building margin now, thinking about estate planning should not be underestimated. We are in a position a little bit more of abundance because a wonderful estate gift came through right before this that we had no idea we were even going to get. That helps relieve some pressure. But I think the next pivot is to help the millions in our church who need millions of dollars. So I can’t remember who it was I stole it from, but “new levels bring new devils.” There’s my Amy quote for the day, and you got a whole nother devil for crisis number two that we’re not prepared for. So, my final thought is that, and I don’t know if this makes sense to maybe some guys watching, I’ve found that pastors who like Sundays more are so stressed right now, because they’re preaching to a camera, but they like the feedback of people. They like the interaction. On the dark side, it’s the stroke of their ego that right now pastors who are Sunday pastors, they hate it. But pastors who are Monday pastors, and what I mean by that is they’re leaders and not just communicators, but they’re leaders. They are more energized than ever. So as I coach guys, I can tell a big difference between the Sunday guys and the Monday guys. And so if you’re a Sunday guy, you better lean into some Monday stuff. And if you’re a Monday guy and your communication is not so great, you better lean into the Sunday. Cause if that’s how people are judging your church right now online, that has to be, you know, holy shoddy is still shoddy. So, I mean, you got to kind of be a little bit better. I would say work on that, which in this season most needs the work. But I would prepare for the pivot, not the current. This is what I’m saying. And get those smartest people around you who can say, okay, what’s next? And then, cause I think you deal with scenarios and not just solutions, so I’m in scenario mode now and I’m appreciative of people who kept reminding me this is just step one.

Tony (33:16): Yeah. And on that note, leaders, if you’re listening to this, you ought to begin thinking now, how is this going to change our ministry forever? Not just in these next weeks and months. How is this going to be changing our ministry for the future ahead of us? Because there are going to be changes that come out of this. There’s no doubt about it. Rick, in fact, this kind of gets to the question I had in mind for you. There are going to be some opportunities for churches to start to take advantage of new ministry opportunities that are going to emerge in the next weeks and months. But income for a lot of churches that are listening is going to be going down. How do we start to take advantage of those new opportunities when the income stream may not be what it used to be?

Rick (34:09): Well, I’m not real smart, Tony, but if your income’s going down and you want to do new stuff, you better make sure your expenses go down more. I mean, it really boils down to that. And so if you’ve exhausted your fundraising and vision giving and you’re in a strapped community, you’re going to have to figure out some ways to make your expenses go down. I think, at least for our church, and y’all are all probably better leaders than I am, but we are way too quick to hire somebody to solve a problem than to use volunteers to solve a problem. And I think there are people that have time on their hands that want to do things. And if we’re creative, we can figure out a way to leverage those people in a way so that we can do more with less. And you may even be in a season where you can’t afford to pay some people, but you can’t afford to have a volunteer coordinator to do some things you couldn’t do before. And then that may lower your cost enough. That and the other thing Scott had mentioned and David’s mentioned about controlling. You know, if you’ve got a building, you’ve got a mortgage, you’ve got to figure out how to hold onto them, I think. But you still need to think, and you’re exactly right, Tony. We need to be thinking ahead. We need to be looking three, five years out and going, what are we doing now that we’re going to need to keep doing if we want to effectively minister to or our community, and we need to start making those changes now. And so that means we need to pay attention to what’s working. And as Andy calls things, you know, where we find that the old couches in our organization that nobody wants to admit that they smell and they’re ugly and they’ve got rips and stains, but they’re sentimental. So we hold on to them? That may be programs, it might be people. It might be facilities. We need to get rid of them, you know? And then we need to, as we’re holding onto things that are not helping us anymore and we’ve got to hold on and prioritize the things that are helping. So it can be a very painful season, but it could also be a very productive season if we pray through and get wise counsel and figure out what are the things that really, really are working and be honest with ourselves. Collin’s says turn over the rocks and look at all the squiggly things and see what’s down there and tell the truth about them. If we’ll do that, it may be a season of opportunity. The biggest thing I could do is if I could encourage anything is I can echo something David’s already mentioned, which is in that process, don’t look to assign a dollar to spend for every dollar you save. If you do not have margin in your budget right now, you need to use this season to at least pivot to the point where you can create margin. And I’ll tell you right now, people, organizations and ministries that had unallocated income are able to ride this out a lot better than people that every year figure out what they think the income’s going to be. Not only that, but they come up and we let the God glorifying income’s going to be, and then they plan to spend every dollar of it. Okay? That’s not good stewardship. Now, just as a personal and organizational practice, we only budget on 90% of our conservatively projected revenues, and whatever number you want to pick that’s less than a hundred, you know, you should pick. And so that’s a forward thinking strategy, but it’s something you should be moving toward now because we didn’t think this would ever happen. And then, 9/11 happened and it couldn’t happen again. And then the great recession happened, and it couldn’t happen again. But the coronavirus thing happened. Guess what? It’s going to happen again. So let’s get ready, and let’s prepare for it so that we have some margin in the future so we don’t feel like we’re strapped. Sorry to preach but I feel pretty strongly about that one.

Amy (37:45): I was thinking that, Rick, I think we could give you the platform. That was a good message.

Tony (37:49): So, just to follow up with what Rick was just talking about, a few months ago, I did a podcast interview with Chris Hodges from Church of the Highlands in Alabama, let’s see Birmingham, right? Isn’t that where the church is? Yeah. So, that whole principle on budgeting on 90% of what came in the previous 12 months? Chris unpacks that completely and talks about how his church has used that from the very beginning. And especially in seasons like this, they’re in a position of strength to really take advantage now of the opportunity that ministry has, especially in these moments of crisis. So I hope you’ll go back and listen to that podcast. We’ll share a link to that conversation in the email that goes out tomorrow morning with the recording of this webinar. Scott, you get the final official question, but then we have all the good questions here at the very end. The final question though for you is, again, we talked about it earlier. It seems like there’s a greater challenge, or you could look at it as an opportunity if you’re an optimist, for churches like yours that are in more rural areas with a slightly older congregation. So how would you encourage other senior pastors who are facing this challenge right now? How would you encourage them as they’re leading their churches in a similar situation?

Scott (39:19): You know? My own experience and then talking to other lead pastors, I think you have to deal with your own fear first. You know, just give it to the Lord. You know, prior to that first offering coming in, we were watching the stock markets, we were listening to the news. We saw the layoff beginning to happen, heard it from people in our church who were being laid off. I think that week, I felt like every time I turned around I was like, “Lord, I’m just giving this to you, Lord. I’m giving this to you.” So when that, that $15,000 offering came in, instead of a $30,000 offering came in, you know what? I knew it was the Lord’s church and you know, I knew he loved the church. Also knew he called me as a leader, you know, and I knew he was going to use me to lead through it. But I would say deal with your own fear first. Dave Kinnaman in his book The State of Pastors, it just came out, he had a great definition for ministry. He says, “when you control nothing but you’re responsible for everything.” You know, and I’ll tell you, I don’t know a pastor who doesn’t feel that way, that you know ,you can control nothing but you’re responsible for everything. And I think too, I think just keep on loving them. You know, be sure the church is just shepherding them. My mom goes to the church, and so every Sunday I preach a fantastic sermon. I’ve never preached a bad sermon according to my mom. But I check on her every day. We do a family devotion, and we FaceTime her in. And so about every three, four days, I said, how are you doing? I asked her that every day, but every three, four days she goes, “Well, Don, my small group leader called. He checked on me today.” He’s 80 years old, you know, I mean, just the church is just loving on people. So I would just make sure you know, your people are being loved on, and also remember, they love the church. You know they do. They love the church want they want the church to do well. They want to see the mission fulfilled. They want to see people come to Christ. They want that. And I think it’s already been said. I think both David and Rick had said this, be transparent with them. You know, they know there’s needs, you know, and also too, I would say value them. They have seen, you know, some of that. I think our oldest member is 90 plus. They have seen hard times before, and they’ve got wisdom and walking with the Lord and insight that this 30 year old, I’m 52. This 52 year old doesn’t have, you know, and so I would say love them, remember them, be transparent and just value them.

Amy (41:44): Tony, I’m so glad we replayed this webinar. This is great information no matter what’s going on in the world. And if our listeners, Tony, are feeling that they could use some extra help, what would be their next step?

Tony (41:55): Yeah, so I want to talk to two types of pastors and church leaders listening to today’s podcast. The first, if you are still trying to figure out what do we do and because this is not the way we were accustomed to doing church, and more specifically, talking about finances and giving and dealing with reductions in giving and how we respond as a church. If that’s you, we want to provide you some one-o-one coaching, and there’s an opportunity for you to connect with a coach from our team. We’re reallocating some of our consultants to help churches specifically take next steps over the next 30 days as it relates to the response to the crisis that your church is experiencing right now. If you’re interested in that, go to theunstuckgroup.com/coaching. For other pastors and church leaders that are listening, your response is in place. You know what you need to do in the season, but you’re already starting to think about how is this going to change the way we do church forever? What changes are we going to need to make as a church going forward after this crisis is behind us? And we’re already starting to engage those conversations with churches as well. And if that’s you, if you’re at that place, we would love to connect with you and talk about assessing what can we learn from this situation, beginning to build a new plan for the future, getting the right structure in place for that new future, and then helping you build an action plan to move forward. So if you’re interested in that, please reach out to us at theunstuckgroup.com. We’d love to start a conversation with you. And the good news is we have some virtual options that we can actually start those conversations right now to help you begin to plan for that new future.

Sean (43:51): Well, thanks for joining us on this week’s podcast. If you like what you’re hearing on the podcast, we would love your help in getting the content out to others. But you can do that by subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. You could give us a review, and tell your friends about the podcast. Next week we’re going to be back with another brand new episode. So until then, we hope you have a great week.

The post Finance & Giving Considerations During COVID-19 — Episode 140 | The Unstuck Church Podcast appeared first on TonyMorganLive.com.

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pjstafford · 7 years

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Last Saturday night I was at a David Duchovny concert in Vancouver. The concert venue was at the Imperial - a great venue- but in a neighborhood that the Urban Dictionary says is the worst neighborhood in all of Canada and some homeless advocacy groups argue is the poorest neighborhood in all of North America. Many of us at the concert had traveled to Vancouver from across the globe and there was some fear and trepidation which I over heard from other concert goers about this neighborhood. I had worked as a homeless advocate and have been on the board of a homeless shelter in the 90′s in Albuquerque. I want to share my viewpoints of my experience in the worst neighborhood in Canada from an X-File frame of view because what brought me to Vancouver on October 14 was, of course, to see David Duchovny in Vancouver where the X-files was and is being filmed during a week-end which included 1013 Friday. How does homelessness and the X-file find a theme together? That is outlined in the link to the video above.

I guess one way to set the mood is to say that my friend and I were only spending a week-end in Vancouver, but many other David Duchovny fans had been in Vancouver a week and had been to many famous filming sites. My friend and I were staying at a Ramada fairly near the venue. We drove through the area at first looking for parking before deciding that the valet parking at the Ramada was the best choice. As we drove by I said- looking at the homeless and the city streets and remembering the video above- “oh, my God, this is the neighborhood they shot “Home Again” in.” I realize, of course, the complete insensitivity to the plight of homelessness to see it in such focused X-file terms, but it was my frame of mind at the time. My friend and I did in fact look for the filming sites of “Home Again” as we walked around the neighborhood, but because it is from the last season which we have not yet seen hundreds of times (only dozens) we were unable to locate exact locations. We did watch the episode again back in Seattle the night before I flew home.

On Saturday morning we decided to walk to the Ovaltine Restaurant (the filming location of a scene in Jose Chung) and to go by the venue. We found ourselves walking down what I now realize is the area considered the worst two blocks in at least Canada and possibly North America. The poverty was clear- people living in tents on the street a few blocks away from some fine, upscale and beautiful neighborhoods. We then went to the Ovaltine Restaurant, the venue, back to the hotel for an hour of two, back to the venue to stand in line (starting at noon), walked back through the neighborhood to gastown for a bite to eat and back to the venue to stand in line again, before taking a cab back to the hotel after the concert.

I want to state fairly clearly that there was not one time I felt scared or fearful (although I would not walk back to the hotel in the evening because I am not foolish) and the only time I was asked for money was after leaving the venue after the concert. As we walked down the blocks at 9 a.m on a Saturday morning, we were greeted with “Good morning Ladies” and comments that our coffee cups were pink. When our way was blocked and I said “excuse me” people moved out of the way politely. There was nothing unpleasant about that walk except for being confronted with the fact that poverty exists and people (human beings) live in horrific conditions day in and day out.

As we stood in line for 6 hours to see a concert, there was an need on an occasion to use a restroom. The coffee shop sometimes let you and sometimes said that it was just for customers so my friend and I started using the community center on the corner which was truly more of a homeless center. Again, I was greeted, offered water and shown the restroom. My friend found blood in one of the restrooms so we climbed the stairs to use one on the other floor. There were food being served, there were disposable containers for needles, there were signs telling people where to go if they were overdosing. People were being afforded respect and dignity. I was impressed.

Here are some statistics from “Addressing Homelessness in Metro Vancouver” a white paper published in February 2017.

An estimated 80% of homeless people suffer a chronic health issue (45% suffer two or more health conditions concurrently)15 b. 44% of sheltered and 55% of unsheltered homeless have an addiction (2014)16 c. 33% of sheltered and 36% of unsheltered homeless suffer mental illness (2014)10 d. 30% of sheltered and 27% of unsheltered homeless have a physical disability (2014)1

As we stood in line several neighborhood people talked to us. We actually had sandwiches we did not want to eat, but couldn’t find any person that wanted the sandwiches. Again most neighborhood people were polite, courteous and curious about why so many of us were waiting in line in front of a concert venue 6 hours before the doors opened. I laughed on and off for hours at a woman who said “what are you protesting?” I told my friend that we were the laziest protesters ever - no signs, no marching, no chanting- worst protest ever. At one point a women who appeared to be suffering from withdrawal of some time fell. Other people in line offered her assistance but she could not focus on them enough to accept their help. She was in her own world. After a few minutes when I witnessed her getting her shaking under control and her checking her legs to see if she was hurt, i went up to her. From her perspective I was a big brown blob walking up to her and I startled her. I told her that when she was ready I was willing to help and she desperately reached for my hands. I helped her up and she grasped a tree until she was ready to stand and walk on her own. I offered her food. She did not want it. She never asked for money. Never threatened me.

The next morning I woke up thinking of that episode “Home again” and the point of the episode. I wondered how many of us X-Files fans might have thought back to that episode that night having experienced these and other moments. The point - people are not trash. They are not disposable. They are not to be discarded. I can walk away from that neighborhood and I can avoid the similar downtown areas in Albuquerque, but the people and the problem still exist. From my experience in Albuquerque I know the underlying issues of homelessness - mental health issues, substance abuse, traumatic brain injuries, lack of literacy, lack of job skills, disenfranchisement from society, family and friends having giving up on them. I know that veterans make up a large percentage of our homeless population in America, I know that senior citizen homeless numbers rose drastically in 2008 and subsequent years when retirement savings were loss and, like Vancouver, native people are a higher percentage in the homeless population than in the general population. We can look to our educational systems, our prisons systems, our health care services (especially for the mentally ill), our foster care systems and juvenile care systems and to our economy. The reality is a whole lot of us who go through our lives as hard working, normal citizens are closer to homelessness than we would like to admit. In the past year I had to borrow money from friends and move into a friends home because of unemployment and I actually consider myself a fairly successful human. We are all just humans doing the best we can in our life with what we have. Nothing could remind us more of that than having spent so much time in that area around people who despite their issues were polite and courteous to us.

I know our fan groups are a socially conscious and caring group of people who donate to all kinds of causes - let David Duchovny issue a post asking people to donate to charities on his birthday and beautiful things happen. The proceeds from this concert went to hurricane victim. This is a fan group which organizes volunteer and donation events for charities in honor of Gillian Anderson’s and Scully’s birthday. The holiday season is ahead of us . I am especially asking something of every one who attended that concert and interacted that night with a person who lives on the street in the worst neighborhood of North America. If you fall into this category, than this holiday season in honor of “Home Again” and the X-files they do something in your communities to alleviate the effects of homelessness, reduce the possibility of someone becoming homeless or end some of the underlying causes of homelessness - take blankets or socks to a shelter, donate to a literacy program, call your legislators and demand better services for addiction treatment. Buy subways cards and pass them out whenever you see someone with a sign saying hungry.

At the very least, the next time you are in a situation where you are going to interact with homeless individuals (perhaps because of a David Duchovny concert), please treat people with respect and kindness. People are not trash. They are not disposable. I was reminded of this last Saturday.

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buffster · 7 years

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I Will Remember You (ATS 1.08)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

Ah, Buffy on Angel (in more ways than one). I wish this had occurred more often during Angel’s run. Also, can we take a moment to appreciate this title? It’s just so sad. I thought this was a great episode--definitely one of my favorites of the season.

I didn’t really care for the Buffy and Angel relationship as we saw it (though it did have its cuteness) but I have to admit I’m intrigued by Buffy and Angel in later seasons. By that time both of them had really grown to appreciate the burden they carry and Buffy had pretty much figured out her life was never going to be normal (though Chosen did eventually end with the possibility).

There’s some talk this episode that they would focus on each other rather than the people they need to save, giving us an interesting theme of a hero needing to be alone in order to be effective. It’s strange that we get this message since Buffy’s entire story is about rejecting this idea. But we do see her struggle to set aside her relationship with Dawn for the world in season five...but I’m also not sure if a person cut off from the world would continue to care enough to keep saving it...I don’t know. It’s an interesting dilemma.

Buffy and Angel have very similar, very isolating positions in the later seasons and it would have been interesting to see how they worked. Right now you’re probably thinking “but the curse! duh!” but don’t you think they could have put some effort into getting rid of that? Honestly even if he and Buffy decided to go their separate ways more effort should have been given to de-cursing Angel. That shit is dangerous. But enough about could-have-beens.

Angel: Look, Buffy will always going to be a part of me, and that's never going to change. But she's human and I'm - not. And that's also never going to change. We said our good-byes, no need to stir any of this up again.

In a scene we will see repeated (when Buffy dies) Cordelia worries about Angel after he’s interacted with Buffy. She worries even more because he doesn’t seem that upset. He and Buffy have both accepted that they can’t be a couple, which explains the low drama. All of the back and forth was about holding on to what couldn’t be. But then Buffy arrives.

Buffy: What is this? Some new torment you cooked up just for me?

Angel: No, I don't want to torment..

Buffy: What is it? You can see me, but I can't see you? What are we playing here?

Angel: We're not. I'm not playing anything. I wrestled with this decision..

Buffy: Which you made without me.

Angel: I tried to do what I thought was right. It's complicated how this all happened, Buffy, you know? It's kind of a long story.

This conversation was interesting given that it could very well have taken place after the episode. Even after Buffy confronts him for not including her he goes and makes yet another decision without her. And though she may have eventually agreed to take back the day, I really don’t know if she would have agreed to forget it. It probably did make it easier for her, but still...she should have gotten to decide whether she wanted to remember. I’m not sure the minute he gave her counts. If Buffy and Angel ever did become a couple they’d have to work on Angel thinking he can make decisions for the both of them. He’s not exactly used to partnerships.

Angel: No. I-It is confusing. And I.. When we're apart - it’s easier. It hurts - every day. But I live with it. And now you're - you're right here - and I can actually reach out.. and - it's more then confusing - it's unbearable.

Buffy: But we have to bear, right? I mean, what else can we do? It doesn't work with us. It can't.

Angel: No, I-I can't give you a life, or a future or anything a real girl would want.

Buffy: No matter how much we miss each other.

Angel: Or what we feel in the moment.

Angel and Buffy decide to separate when being together becomes too much, after which (of course) Angel becomes human.

Angel’s life has been one hardship after another and it’s left him pessimistic about any sort of happiness for himself. He’s afraid to even hope he could have it. Just like when Angel got the gem, Doyle is excited and Angel is reluctant. He decides to head under the post office to meet with the Powers That Be. But when they confirm it’s the real deal he heads straight to Buffy and they kiss in the sun.

Cordelia: This plant was thriving just this morning. Now look at it. I'm telling you where she leads, dark forces follow.

Doyle: Buffy gave it mites?

Cordelia: How else do you explain it?

Doyle: Jealousy?

Cordelia: I'm jealous of her? Oh, please!

I actually think it makes sense that Cordelia would be jealous of Buffy. Back in high school Buffy’s duty seemed like a burden, but now that Cordy’s life isn’t turning out as perfect as planned her purpose and specialness could be enviable. But we don’t get enough Cordelia and Buffy to explore this (which is a shame, since Buffy could have used a lesson in how hard life is even without the slayer burden). We get more evidence that she is jealous later in the episode:

Cordelia: Maybe it’s time that you grew up and realized that you can’t have everything. You can’t have Angel and save the world.

Buffy always finds Cordelia’s comments so off base she hardly gives them any thought, but I think the Scoobies sometimes think along the same lines and just don’t voice it. Buffy is so locked into seeing slaying as a burden she doesn’t realize other people don’t.

After an initial indulgence in his new-found mortality Angel returns to doubt. He wants to keep his distance from Buffy because he’s afraid to be happy and have it fall apart. But hormones take over and we finally get to see a blissed out Buffy and Angel. It was really cute, but there wasn’t enough time to see what they would really be like as a couple and what their obstacles would be.

Buffy: Angel? This is the first time I ever really felt this way.

Angel: What way?

Buffy: Just like I've always wanted to. Like a normal girl, falling asleep in the arms of her normal boyfriend. It's perfect.

This was one of the saddest lines. We’ll see Buffy get the normal boyfriend in season four of Buffy, but I just don’t think she ever had the connection with Riley she had with Angel. Doyle returns to tell Angel that the demon is back.

Doyle: Don't you want to wake the girl?

Angel: Not for the world.

Angel does the stupid thing and runs off to try and fight alone. If he had remained human there definitely would be some conflict where he refused to accept being benched in the fight against evil. He goes back to the Powers That Be and learns a fight is coming and Buffy will die.

Angel: Look I can't protect her or anyone this way, not as a man.

PTB Woman: You're asking to be what you were, a demon with a soul, because of the Slayer?

PTB Man: Oh, this is a matter of love. It does not concern us.

Angel: Yes, it does. The Mohra demon came to take a warrior from your cause - and it succeeded. I'm no good to you like this. I know you have it in your power to make this right. Please.

PTB Man: What is done can not be undone.

PTB Woman: What is not yet done can be avoided.

PTB Man: Temporal folds are not to indulge at - the whims of lower beings.

PTB Woman: You are wrong. This one is willing to sacrifice every drop of human happiness and love he has ever known for another. He is not a lower being.

I’m not trying to take away from Angel’s heroics here (and I don’t deny he loves Buffy and wants to protect her) but I also think we should examine how Angel’s fear of happiness probably played a role in this decision as well. It’s a major issue I don’t recall the show ever dealing with. Another factor is his newfound love of heroics, likely stemming from his question of Why Am I Here since returning from hell (”it’s bad for the people we’re meant to help”).

Angel tells Buffy what’s going to happen. She eventually accepts it, but given that she only had a minute it’s hard to know what she really wanted. The day never existed for her and it’s on Angel alone to remember it. I think Buffy would have wanted to remember what they shared, no matter how painful.

Buffy: Given enough time we should be able to...

Angel: Forget.

Character Notes:

Buffy Summers: Buffy claims she’s going to see her father, but since we never hear about this again I’d say it’s just a thin excuse to see Angel. Despite not facing a vampire she brings a stake to fight the demon because she’s comfortable with it. She mentions that she used to fantasize about Angel becoming human.

Angel: As a human he loves chocolate but hates yogurt.

Allen Francis Doyle: He is excited about his new unemployment and wants to go make his mark on the world.

Cordelia Chase: She’s upset about losing her job, which has brought her way more happiness than the whole wide world did.

#iwillrememberyou #david greenwalt #jeanne renshaw #angel #Buffy summers #Cordelia chase #Allen Francis Doyle #buffy/angel

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afoolsingenuity · 7 years

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Bite Sized Books // Where I Declare My Love For Mariana Zapata’s Books

I have been intending to write a review for Mariana Zapata’s books for a good long while. A month, even! I read them when I was on holiday and adored them in every way. At least, the first ones I read (the two I read when I got home weren’t quite as good but they showed great potential). I knew I wanted to tell you guys how brilliant they were but I really couldn’t find the words to say why other than to flail and say read them! I still knew I had to feature them, though. There are just some books you have to talk about even when you’re utterly inelegant about them. I mean, even Zapata’s worst books were enjoyable they just weren’t up to scratch to my favourites from her.

The Ones I Adored

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me – Mariana Zapata

Published: 28th February 2016 Source: Bought Genre: Sports romance, Contemporary, Adult My Rating:

Vanessa Mazur knows she's doing the right thing. She shouldn't feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary.

But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she's beyond shocked.

For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn't find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He's asking for the unthinkable. What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?

This was the first book from Zapata I heard about. I am a girl who loves romance, and more specifically sports romance, and I also adore fake relationships so when I heard there was a book which included all three of them you can bet I was interested in reading. Only problem? It was over 600 pages long. The average romance is like 300 pages, you can imagine I was intimidated by a book which was twice that. It’s why I didn’t bother buying until I knew I had all the time in the world to read it, when I was on holiday. I almost didn’t pick it up even then, luckily I avoided that mistake and found my first of my favourites from Zapata.

I adored Vanessa, she puts up with no crap and she didn’t swoon for Aiden just because he was some hot shot NFL player. She didn’t care. He had been a means to an end so could pursue her career. She handed in her notice and didn’t look back and I didn’t blame her as Aiden was annoying as hell, he was an island, and he didn’t stand up for her. She would have stayed focused an independent from Aiden if he hadn’t offered something she wanted, money to truly give her the independence she craved, she just had to marry him to help him stay in the US. Easy, right?

Well, it’s safe to say from there I fell in love as Aiden stayed being gruff and focused, but a little less of an island under Vanessa's influence. And I adored it. I didn’t even notice the length of the book because I was so invested in these characters. I swooned and sighed and grinned like and idiot and fell head over heels. I truly did, this was the best. Don’t be put off by the length but strap yourself in for a slow… very slow ride. This is the ultimate of slowburn. The romance moves at a glacial pace and it might frustrate the hell out of some. I was on the edge of my seat and loved every minute, though.

Dear Aaron – Mariana Zapata

Published: 10th June 2017

Source: Bought

Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Adult/New Adult

My Rating:

Ruby Santos knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she signed up to write a soldier overseas.

The guidelines were simple: one letter or email a week for the length of his or her deployment. Care packages were optional.

Been there, done that. She thought she knew what to expect.

What she didn’t count on was falling in love with the guy.

Then onto the second of Zapata’s books which I read. I hadn’t got this one on my radar until Nick reviewed it (funny how Nick often is the person who puts romance on my radar). I wasn’t quite as eager to get a hold of this one because Nick had said the pacing was a bit off with some of the romance and that it could have been shorter, the concern I had when it came to buying Wall of Winnipeg. I went ahead, though, because I loved the idea of a couple writing to one another and falling love. The concept slayed me and the reality was even better than expected.

Ruby and Aaron were so cute together. Ruby was brilliant and I loved that she lived with her parents still but was pursuing her career because I live at home too and it isn’t great but it’s a good means to and end. And Aaron was great building this friendship with Ruby as one of his few contacts back home so he could cope throughout his deployment.

I adored it and was totally sucked in from the start. I was gone for Aaron and adored Ruby from the very beginning. She was way geekier than me but I totally got her and her fandom ways and her quirkiness and how utterly why she is. I just connected with her straight away as I saw a lot of myself in her.

I loved how the format of the book demonstrated the progression in the relationship. We begin with emails being sent with them being a bit awkward as hey got to know one another and slowly connect. It then changes to IMs as the pair get closer and talk more often and it develops as they grow closer. It totally worked and I loved it.

This was such a cute book and I was expecting it to be angstier because Aaron was in the army but it actually was way more cute and fun and I loved it for that. It was nothing like I thought and everything which I wanted in a romance. I had a silly grin going on while I was reading and I'm not ashamed of that fact.

Kulti – Mariana Zapata

Published: 20th March 2015 Source: Bought Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Sports Romance, Adult My Rating:

“Trust me, I’ve wanted to punch you in the face a time or five.”

When the man you worshipped as a kid becomes your coach, it’s supposed to be the greatest thing in the world. Keywords: supposed to.

It didn’t take a week for twenty-seven-year-old Sal Casillas to wonder what she’d seen in the international soccer icon—why she’d ever had his posters on her wall, or ever envisioned marrying him and having super-playing soccer babies.

Sal had long ago gotten over the worst non-break-up in the history of imaginary relationships with a man that hadn’t known she’d existed. So she isn’t prepared for this version of Reiner Kulti who shows up to her team’s season: a quiet, reclusive, shadow of the explosive, passionate man he’d once been.

Nothing could have prepared her for the man she got to know.

Or the murderous urges he brought out in her.

“Sal, please don’t make me visit you in jail. Orange isn’t your color.”

This was going to be the longest season of her life.

And then the third, and in some ways my favourite. I actually had to figure out how to connect my Kindle to my phones internet to read this one while I was away because I brought it halfway through reading Dear Aaron because I knew I needed to read more Zapata and especially this one. It was another that had come onto my radar when I heard of Wall of Winnipeg because sports romance! I was put off by the fact it was a football (soccer) romance because I am not a huge fan of football, I see it enough on TV at home, do I really need to read a romance about it too. Also, the last sports romance which involved football I tried to read was Scoring Wilder and I hated it so I thought I might not like Kulti I was convinced by the fact Zapata wrote it and I am so glad I was.

I think this one clicked for me because I adored the fact it was a romance with an age gap. I was full on in love with Kulti too. Also, it was so similar to Pitch and my favourite ship in that (Mike/Ginny 4eva) that I was fully in love from the beginning.

This one was an enemies to lover romance and it was spot on. Even better, Sal wasn’t the usual girl in her early twenties falling in love but instead 27 and had several years playing on the football team who was focused on her career. She was determined to be the best she could be (with a few exceptions) and she was determined to do her best. And Reiner Kulti was a grumpy guy who had passed the peak in his career and who really didn’t want to be coaching when he was a world famous player. And he had been a dick to Sal’s brother and was basically horrible to anyone he spoke to and so Sal wasn’t willing to put up with crap from him at all.

I loved the dynamic between the two whenever they spoke and how throughout the book they grew closer. First, they became friends before any hope of romance happened. And then there was Sal’s family! I adored her parents and would have happily had them feature far more in the book. I would return to read more about Kulti and Sal’s life given half a chance.

This was the best kind of sports romance for me. It was about a female athlete for once and was absolutely brilliant. It even had a really good age difference romance for me to love. I will read all the books!

The Ones I Liked Less

Under Locke – Mariana Zapata

Published: 19th January 2014

Source: Bought

Genre: Contemporary, Romance

My Rating:

He was my boss, my brother’s friend, a Widower, an ex-felon, and a man I’d seen casually with a handful of women. But he was everything that gripped me, both the good and the bad. Worst case scenario if things turned awkward between us, I could go somewhere else. I’d gotten over epic heartbreak before, one more wouldn’t kill me.

After moving to Austin following six months of unemployment back home, Iris Taylor knows she should be glad to have landed a job so quickly... even if the business is owned by a member of the same motorcycle club her estranged father used to belong to. Except Dex Locke might just be the biggest jerk she’s ever met. He’s rude, impatient and doesn’t know how to tell time.

And the last thing they ever expected was each other.

But it was either the strip club or the tattoo shop.

… she should have chosen the strip club.

It just makes me sad when you read a book which doesn't work for you from an author you love. I mean, I still haven’t read all of Zapata’s books so there is still a chance there are more from her I don’t like but it made me sad as this was the first book by her I didn’t adore. It was partially a me thing for me to dislike it. I wasn’t a fan of the whole motorcycle gang aspect of the book. I may have enjoyed Sons of Anarchy but it’s a bit iffy when it comes to gang things. Also, when I began reading it was the last day on my holiday and my brain wasn’t totally focused on the book. That lack of focus when it came to reading this meant I didn’t become fully absorbed either.

It had all the usual marks of a Mariana Zapata book but it just missed the mark for me. I think it was the fact it was a biker gang book and Dex was just not what I wanted. He came across as a dick (hence the nickname in the book) and whilst he revealed a softer side his dickish tendencies were too much for me.

It was a good read for some, I’m sure, but not for me. It makes me sad but there always has to be one, right?

Lingus – Mariana Zapata

Published: 7th August 2015 Source: Bought Genre: Contemporary, Romance My Rating:

Most people would describe Katherine Berger as a responsible girl with a big heart, a loyal friend who takes care of those close to her, and the possessor of a wicked sense of humor. There was something about her that most people didn't know. "My name is Kat Berger, and I love porn."

When twenty-five-year-old Kat is dragged to a porn convention by her best friend, she's both embarrassed and nervous. The last thing she ever expected was to meet someone who makes her laugh like no other. This is a story about acceptance and friendship, and a love born out of the most unexpected of places.

This was a really good friends to lovers story and I enjoyed it. I didn't fall head over heels for it like Zapata's later books but you can see the essence of the great stories she writes and I did enjoy it. This only ended up on the bad list because I wasn’t head over heels and totally absorbed like I expected to be.

The book starts at a porn convention so it was safe to say I was a little hesitant going in to see whether I'd like it. Turns out it was hilarious and I enjoyed it. Sure, occasionally Kat and her friends seemed a bit OTT, almost like caricatures of who they really were because they were too much. But I did enjoy it and I loved Kat's close-knit group of friends and how they were all so close.

I thought some stuff went too fast in this book and some things too slow but the pacing wasn't a major issue. It was the first time I felt like a Zapata book was a touch too long though. I actually noticed a bit of a drag in the story towards the end.

As a whole it's a funny romance that I enjoyed as a weekend read. It may not have ticked all my boxes but it did tick a lot of them.

Now I have declared my undying love for Mariana Zapata I feel a strong need to go read those last two books by her. Who was the last author whose entire backlist you went and bought after one book? And any awesome romance authors you feel the need to recommend?

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#a fool's ingenuity #books

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thechasefiles · 6 years

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 3/9/2019

Good MORNING #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Saturday 9th March 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Saturday Sun Nation Newspaper (SS).

‘NOT ME!’ – Former minister for social transformation and parliamentarian Hamilton Lashley has rubbished reports that Opposition Leader Joseph Atherley has invited him to be part of a new political party. Lashley told Barbados TODAY that he did not know where such a suggestion came from, and indicated that as Barbados struggles to overcome economic challenges, now was not the time to talk politics. Lashley said: “I was amazed to hear that the Opposition Leader invited Hamilton Lashley to assist in the formation of a political party. That is the farthest thing away from the truth. Forming a political party? Of course not, what they want to put Ms Lashley son in?” Media reports earlier today quoted Atherley, who won a seat in last General Elections on a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) ticket, and crossed the floor just days later, as saying he has been involved in discussions with Lashley who has been showing interest in what he has been doing. The Opposition Leader said that yesterday Lashley attended a meeting with his team of spokespersons to look at matters related to culture and the arts, according to reports. Atherley said: “Whether or not he is to be identified as an official spokesperson with reference to any specific area, I am not at this point wanting to say that. “Suffice it to say we are happy with the interest level that he has demonstrated and with the input that he has been making for some of the discussions that we have been having. “We certainly would be happy to have him involved with us totally, but that is a matter, which he would have to speak to himself.” Lashley, who confirmed that he attended the meeting at Parliament Buildings yesterday, said there was no discussion about joining or forming any party. “Yesterday’s meeting was not a political discussion of any sort,” Lashley stressed. He told Barbados TODAY: “It was strictly a meeting of national interest and of national concern in terms of providing ways of assisting the transformation of the Barbadian economy, using culture and the arts. “And then on the other hand in the event that there was a national emergency, how best to deal with it and what systems they are putting in place. Of course I had an interest in that. “I think any Barbadian would have an interest in that. My thing is that I believe the good Reverend should carry these type of initiatives that he is talking about across the entire country.” Lashley, who served as a minister under both the Democratic Labour Party and the BLP, said his focus was on seeing what he could do as a community activist to help Barbadians deal with the austerity measures of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Programme (BERT). (BT)

BIG SHIFT – While president of the National Union of Public Workers Akanni McDowall appears set for a court battle with his general secretary Roslyn Smith, another executive member has shifted his loyalty and is making a bid to replace the leader. In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY, the union’s first Vice President, Fabian Jones, who at one point wholeheartedly backed the current president, announced he was ready to enter the leadership race with less than a month before the nation’s public sector workers vote for a new executive. Saying he now fears the NUPW has lost its direction, Jones argued that union leaders had allowed in-house fighting to detract from the union’s chief obligation of attending to the wellbeing of workers. He said this has prompted him to mount an election campaign that he claims is centered on unity, transparency, and renewed activism. Jones declared to Barbados TODAY: “I am a man for all seasons and I know people will understand that if Fabian Jones is breaking the ranks right now to run for president, he must have a real fundamental problem with the way how things are being done right now and that is true. In previous elections, Jones presented himself as an ardent supporter of McDowall even in the face of pressure from former union president Walter Maloney, he said. Jones added: “Some may say it looks like a back stab, but the union is bigger than any one person. It is thousands of members strong, so if I have to do that for the betterment of the majority while probably offending one person, I will, because it is a duty and I feel duty bound to do it. “I came through the youth league with Akanni. I saw him grow and develop and mentored under Walter [Maloney] and for a time I liked that the union was standing up and I was part of that and not being silent anymore. But that is only one aspect of it. The union as an institution has to be run on a day-to-day basis. There are rules to respect and there’s a way of doing things, which should always be based on consensus.” The union’s pending election of officers at its annual general meeting on April 3 is to take place amid a longstanding rift between Smith and McDowall that has spilled onto the public scene. On Thursday morning, Smith released a statement signalling her intention to sue McDowall for defamation over statements made to the NUPW’s National Council about Smith’s use of the union’s credit card. Jones described the current saga as “unfortunate”, conceding that the union needed to take better care of its finances. He said: “There was no theft or wild spending, but I would say that some procedural rules were flouted. “At the end of the day, we are talking about the members’ money and I believe that the resources of the members should be used to forward their cause. Making a case for his leadership, Jones declared: “I believe in frugality and not excess and I can assure the membership that under a Fabian Jones presidency, I’m going to lead with a conscience, fairness and love. “I want to restore confidence in the union, because as we know, membership is dwindling. “The successful operation of a union requires a certain level of harmony and I believe right now there is some tension between the current President, who is head of the executive and the General Secretary who is head of the secretariat. It’s all in the media. “I want to bring harmony between the executive and the secretariat” The trade unionist of 17 years’ experience has served on the NUPW’s youth league as public relations officer from 2011 to 2013, a floor member from 2013 to 2015, as 2nd VP from 2015 to 2017 and as 1st VP from 2017 to the present. During his most recent term, Jones said he brought many workable solutions and ideas to the table in the interest of improving the lot of local public workers. “I don’t really feel as though my views were taken and utilised. I was just like a voice in the wilderness saying ‘do it this way and do it that way’ and just being ignored.” Jones added that his plans included a major push to get young workers interested in the union’s vision by using modern methods of communication to reach them and other workers who had become disgruntled with the union’s direction. Jones said: “Young people are the future of the movement. Right now most of the members are older people and the young people are going to be a hard sell, because those are the ones who really suffer under the retrenchment programme. “The NUPW as one of the oldest unions in the region is often sought by others for guidance and if our own people are questioning our strength and our relevance, it bothers me. I want to bring more harmony to the NUPW.” (BT)

MORRIS APPOINTED PRESS SECRETARY – Veteran journalist Roy R. Morris has taken on a new role. He was appointed today by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley as her first Press Secretary. In announcing the appointment, Prime Minister Mottley said: “I am delighted that Mr Morris has agreed to serve as Press Secretary. I have taken my time to make this appointment as I believe it is a critical position in communicating our programmes to our people. With his tremendous experience in journalism and media in the private sector, I am confident that he will add value and make a difference as we work to build the best Barbados together as a people.” Morris, whose journalism career started in 1979, currently teaches a number of journalism courses at the Barbados Community College. The former Editor-in-Chief at the Nation Publishing Co. Limited and founding Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive Officer of Barbados TODAY will take up the appointment on Monday. (SS)

‘WILL, NO CASH’ TO FIX WOMEN’S ISSUES - At a time when political leaders seem to be paying attention to women issues for the first time in the country’s history, there is no money to fix them. Reflecting on this year’s International Women’s Day theme: Balance for Better, the public relations officer of the National Organisation of Women (NOW), Marsha Hinds-Layne, told Barbados TODAY of mixed feelings as she observed the day. For Hinds-Layne, now that there was the political will to improve the problems affecting women, the financial resources were lacking. “For the first time in the history of Barbados, we are seeing clear political will and understanding, in the political leaders of Barbados, with respect to women’s issues. She told Barbados TODAY: “It is coming at the point where Barbados is in the deepest economic recession it has ever been in. The finance and the ability to deliver on the political will now has to be worked out.” The activist said since the Labour Party won the Government in 2018, she has been having discussions with several Cabinet ministers on a daily basis, to discuss the struggles women in Barbados daily, including abuse, unemployment and lack of finance. Hinds-Layne acknowledged that she would be lying if she said they did not show a keen interest in helping, but she knew their hands were tied since the public’s purse had limited funds. The public relations officer said effort now has to be placed on finding the right balance to tackle women issues. Hinds-Layne said: “Basically now, it is how do we find the balance. And balance for a third world country is going to look very different from balance anywhere else. “This is what we are grappling with in Barbados, on this international day of the woman 2019. What does balance look like for a vulnerable Third World Caribbean island? (BT)

UWI CAVE HILL SAYS BIG TURNAROUND IN FORTUNES – While enrollment is still nearly half its peak levels five years ago, the University of the West Indies (UWI) at Cave Hill is reporting a steady increase in Barbadians studying there, campus principal Professor Eudine Barriteau revealed today. The Government’s decision to restore the payment of undergraduate tuition fees for its citizens attending UWI is paying dividends for the campus, and halting a slide in enrollment triggered by the previous administration’s policy to end 50 years of tuition-free university education. Noting that numbers are still 40 per cent lower than they were in 2014 when the policy was introduced, this year’s enrollment is up 12 per cent from last academic year, she said. Barbadians account for 71 per cent of the student population at UWI Cave Hill. Professor Barriteau, who addressed this morning’s open session proceedings of the UWI Cave Hill Campus Council meeting, said: “On June 24, the Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw articulated the policy in Parliament, reversing the earlier Government policy introduced in 2014. By the first semester of the new academic year, the total student population at the Cave Hill Campus was 5856 students, a 12.8 per cent increase on the previous year.” Students who were forced to drop out of UWI because they could not afford tuition are said to be making up a large percentage of the enrollment for this academic year. Practically crippled five years ago by lack of finance and declining enrollment. Professor Barriteau declared, that the Cave Hill Campus now stands ready to reap the rewards of prudent management and revolutionised curriculum through several key partnerships with international counterparts. She told the university council: “This morning our prospects are looking up and like our iconic blackbird, the campus is ready to soar. We are now poised to feel the sunshine of our prudent management and careful navigation of austerity. For the past four years I have reminded my colleagues and students that the UWI Cave Hill Campus is greater than and will not be defined by its combination of challenges that it had to confront and contain.” She said that much of the campus’ resurgence culminated in the last two years by prioritising limited resources towards the better delivery of services, while broadening the scope of learning through linkages with higher tertiary institutions in China and Africa. Pointing to additional reasons for the turnaround in fortunes, she continued: “It has been a productive and eventful year. In 2018 I said Cave Hill Campus has begun the dawn of our strategic planning. I spoke of mapping our recovery and being determined to achieve our goals even though we were navigating financial austerity, declining student enrollment, mounting government debt, aging plant and equipment and an IT [information technology] on the cusp of obsolescence. “We survived because we place the required overdue capital upgrades on hold, concentrated on building a first-class quality environment by prudently deploying scarce resources to enhance the teaching and learning environment, services and programmes for our students.” (BT)

HOPE FOR LIAT – LIAT may get a lifeline.Funding to keep the cash-strapped airline will be discussed by five Caribbean Heads of Government in St Vincent and the Grenadines today. Leaders from Guyana, Trinidad, Grenada, St Lucia and St Kitts/Nevis are expected to attend today’s meeting, according to a CMC report yesterday. The report also quoted a statement coming out of Antigua’s cabinet meeting as saying: “The states which enjoy services from LIAT, but are not owners of LIAT’s shares, are likely to be asked by the four contributing/ownership states to purchase shares in LIAT, or to make a financial contribution, or to enter into a minimum revenue guarantee for LIAT flights which enter their country.” The plight of the financially-troubled regional airline was a major item on the agenda at last month’s 30th Inter-Sessional Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government in St Kitts and Nevis, where a rescue plan was devised by the CARICOM Heads. In it, shareholder governments proposed to inject the additional financial resources that LIAT desperately needs, while other member states were encouraged to commit to providing necessary capital injections into LIAT and to coming on board as new shareholders. This came about as last week Friday it was reported that the airline needed $10 million to keep operations on track or close operations in ten days. The ten days would have been marked tomorrow. Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica are the major shareholder countries in the regional airline. (SS)

FORTRESS UPBEAT AFTER ‘WEAK’ 2018 – Despite recording an “unusually weak” 2018, Fortress Fund Managers is still positive about growth for its mutual funds’ investments this year, Chief Investment Officer of Fortress Advisory and Investment Services Peter Arender has told investors. Speaking last night during the 9th Annual Fortress Investment Forum at the Frank Collymore Hall, which focused on regional and global investment updates, as well as the performance and outlook of Fortress’ range of funds, Arender said he was optimistic about the future after a disappointing 2018. Arender told the forum: “The year 2018 was an unusually weak one in which the Fortress funds held their value reasonably well, but still saw declines. “The lower prices go, however, the greater the potential for future gains. The end of the year gave us a ’20 per cent off’ sale in many areas and we responded in the Caribbean Growth Fund by steadily investing cash which had been saved for just such an event.” While a director at Fortress, Roger Cave, gave a similar positive summary of the investment climate, he revealed that the company’s assets remained steady at $650 million across 11 different funds with regional and global investments. Cave said that with excellent value across its global equity investments, Fortress was more constructive on future returns now that it had been in some time, borne out by strength in the first weeks of 2019. He said Fortress would be focusing on pensions and global funds which “continued to grow very nicely”. Cave said Government’s move to implement the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme was a positive step in the right direction. “I think there is positive in it. We got an IMF [International Monetary Fund] programme done in the shortest possible time and I think it is a better alternative than what could have been,” Cave said. The director also noted that the completion of government’s bond restructuring, the corporate tax reductions and work on economic reforms gave Fortress hope that there would be better opportunities in “its own backyard”. (BT)

BREATH TEST – The workers of the Arawak Cement Company Limited in St Lucy – about 100 in all – will have to subject themselves to breathalyser testing on arrival at work from Monday, March 22, according to an internal memo obtained by Barbados TODAY. But before that, the company is to begin carrying out random testing, the workers were told. In the memo dated today, new general manager Yago Castro said those workers who fail the test are to be barred from entering the compound. A source at the company familiar with the decision told Barbados TODAY that the testing was scheduled to be implemented today against a workers’ protest. But following a last-minute meeting with management it was agreed to reschedule the date and involve the Barbados Workers Union (BWU). As a result, the protest was also called off for the time being. While not mentioning the protest, the memo confirmed that a meeting was held on Wednesday, March 6 to inform the staff that the testing would begin today, but that it has been rescheduled. But the source claimed that up to late this afternoon, the union had not been informed. In explaining the procedure, the memo explained that the tests are to be administered using a hand-held breathalyser and employees entering the facility will be required to blow into the device as directed by security guards. The circular went on to say: “A negative result verified by the appearance of a green light on the device means that the employee will be admitted on the compound. This means he or she has an acceptable blood alcohol concentration of below 0.08 per cent. “Employees who have a positive result indicated by a red light, will not be admitted on the compound, as their blood alcohol concentration would have exceeded 0.08 per cent at the time of the test.” Turning specifically to the implications for testing positive, the circular stated that once an employee is tested positive and is subsequently prohibited from entering the compound, the security officer will submit a report to the firm’s Health and Safety Coordinator (HSC). It noted that the HSC would then send a report to the employee’s supervisor and copy the Employee Relations Officer and Human Relations Manager. “Each time an employee is not permitted on the compound, the company will record it as an uncertified sick leave/casual leave day. The employee will be expected to return to work at the beginning of his or her next scheduled work day,” the Arawak Cement Company staff were told. Upon returning to work, the memo added, the Supervisor will be required to hold discussions with the worker and record that meeting on a special discussion form. “If the employee exceeds three positive results in one month or uses all of his or her uncertified sick days due to positive results, he or she will be scheduled to meet with the Human Resources Manager who will decide on the next step,” it read. The circular said such steps could include an internally-designed programme set up for the employee to monitor his or her progress; drug treatment and counselling through the company’s Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) or progressive discipline. “The three occurrences in one month may be adjusted due to evidence or trends suggesting abuse of this restriction,” the memo said. The document noted that even though treatment or counseling was not mandatory, it is considered a step that the company was taking to assist the employee to bring him or her in line with its policy. “If the employee refuses the efforts made to assist him or her, the company may need to resort directly to the company’s progressive disciplinary progress,” it warned. When contacted tonight, General Manager Yago Castro confirmed to Barbados TODAY that the breathalyser testing was in fact being implemented with one purpose in mind. “Our first priority is for the health and safety of our people,” Castro said. “That is the only purpose. That is why we are investing heavily in the plant . . . last month and last year . . . . You can come and see the improvement in the equipment and the facility; that is the most important thing for us is to keep our people safe. The company has invested over $2 million dollars in the last two years, he said. (BT)

APRIL 1 DEADLINE FOR PLASTICS BAN REMAINS – The April 1 deadline for the importation, wholesale and retail of petro-based plastics remains in place, and Government will be closely monitoring the prices being charged for alternative products. Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy, Kirk Humphrey, made this clear as he addressed a media sensitization workshop at the Ministry recently. However, he expressed concern for vendors who purchased petro-based single use plastics and styrofoam plates at discounted prices from large suppliers without fully understanding that they would be unable to use them after April 1. “Perhaps, we need to have a conversation around how do we accommodate them after April 1. We extended the moratorium on plastic bags for a whole year because I never wanted to affect local manufacturers and people who are on the street trying to make a dollar. “Perhaps that is a conversation that we are going to have to see how best we can accommodate them - can we find a way through the other agencies of government to help them deal with the loss, or do we give them a little more time; just that very small group,” the Minister stated. However, Humphrey was firm in his resolve that the importation, wholesale and retail of petro-based single use products and styrofoam from April 1 would not be allowed, unless he said differently. He acknowledged that the law did not speak to people who had styrofoam and single use plastics in their personal possession, but urged persons to recognize the purpose behind what government was doing and join in the effort. Humphrey also told members of the media that government met with wholesalers and retailers from the beginning and had even made adjustments to allow them to get rid of existing stock. He added that most large scale wholesalers were fully aware of government’s position on the matter, and had already started importing alternative products. “The fact is that Barbadians are not going to stop using cups, plates and bowls; they just will not be using the petro-based ones. So, there will still be a market for all the things that they import; it will just be a different quality product,” he said. (BGIS)

NO MORE EXCUSES – In an impassioned plea in the wake of the recent jump in gun violence, Prime Minister Mia Mottley today urged young people and parents to make choices that would best serve them for the future. Speaking this afternoon at the opening of the Chesterfield Brewster Youth Empowerment Centre, Silver Hill, Christ Church, the Prime Minister told the gathering that Government was determined to give young people and their parents a wider range of positive things to choose from, as opposed to the negative alternatives that currently wreak havoc on society. Mottley declared: “We have a duty to raise young people in a way that their lives can be productive and where they can make a difference. “Life is about choices and I ask the people of Silver Hill to make the choice to take your children and determine if you want to see them in a youth service uniform or you want to see them on a platform singing, entertaining and making you proud. But you don’t want to see them in the middle of the road bleeding.” The Prime Minister referred to the new youth centre, which was built by the Maria Holder Trust, at a cost of $2 million, as one of the new positive options now open to young people. She also noted that Government has approved $5 million for sports and cultural training across the island, adding to the significant number of initiatives including trust loans and the restoration of free tertiary education. The Prime Minister said: “We as a Government made the choice to pay for your children to go to university or the polytechnic if they want to go. They must not be prevented from going because people cannot afford it in this country. This is who we are as a people. “We have equally made the choice that the training that regrettably stopped [in the last ten years] that used to happen across Barbados, will not only be resumed, but will be significantly enhanced.” Mottley suggested that the pool of excuses for poor choices was fast shrinking, as several keys have now been provided to unlock entrepreneurial and creative talent among the youth. She said: “Life is fundamentally about choices, even in terms of building back the economy we were so concerned about giving you the right to choose because freedom is choice. Quite often when you can’t make choices it is because something is curtailing you. “I want the people of Silver Hill to be able to say that even though things were hard along the way, you stayed the course and your children have now achieved and are making you proud.” But she warned that these choices will only remain available if individuals play their part by properly maintaining facilities or repaying the trust loans, so that all Barbadians can benefit and not just a few. The Prime Minister said: “Whether we can continue depends on everybody understanding that we have a role to play together. So for example if the people who benefit from the trust loans don’t pay it back then the country won’t have the opportunity to keep it going. “The Maria Holder Trust is prepared to create a public space where children can go into and learn. We don’t want to see anybody come and put garbage around this building because we are going to make the choice to take care of this building and make the choice for our children to enjoy this building.” (BT)

LEAD POLICE FORCE REFORM, SERGEANTS TOLD – Police sergeants were today told to be agents of change in a 183-year-old constabulary “in serious need” of reform. The officers received the charge during a closing ceremony for the Sergeants General Duties Training Course at the Regional Police Training Centre. Two dozen police sergeants from Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Belize, who completed the course, were warned that their attitude to members of the public desperately needed to change. During his address, commandant of the training centre, John Maxwell, criticised frontline police supervisors for sometimes taking a hands-off approach to important matters. Commandant Maxwell said: “When a member of the public telephones or goes to the police station, it is because he needs our assistance. By the very oath of office that we took, we swore that we would provide the best quality service that can be given. You must ensure that your charges treat these people with respect and respond promptly to their reports. “As sergeants, you must be familiar with your respective force’s rules, policies, standards and procedures and of course the laws of your countries,” said the commandant. “It serves no good to procrastinate or worse yet become discourteous by bluntly refusing to ensure that reports are addressed promptly. Failure to take the appropriate action can at worst result in bodily harm or death.” During the two-week training programme, participants were required to display critical thinking skills, better understand their roles as sergeants and improve efficiency in the execution of their duties. The syllabus covered a diverse array of topics including the issuing and receiving of firearms, communication and public speaking, briefing and debriefing and drafting charges. Deputy Commissioner of Police Lila Strickland warned that with the local force struggling to increase its recruitment numbers, the sergeants needed to better nurture younger officers who join the force. The deputy police chief said: “Serious reform must come and come soon to the organisation. We must in short order conduct a serious audit of our resources and our quality of service. We cannot continue doing business as usual. Drastic changes must be implemented if we are to remain on the cutting edge of service delivery.” She also urged the officers to ensure they act within the confines of the law, maintain high ethical standards and lead by example at all times. “All [senior police officers] should make every effort to handle all disputes of a domestic nature,” she said. “You have many years of training and experience and could better guide on these matters.” (BT)

APPEAL COURT HAS BAIL SAY – A landmark decision by the Court of Appeal could open the floodgates for several accused who have had their bail applications turned down by a High Court. On Thursday, murder accused Pedro Deroy Ellis and his attorney Queen’s Counsel Larry Smith scored a victory when president of the Court of Appeal, Andrew Burgess, held that the appellate court did have jurisdiction to hear an appeal stemming from a bail application and then set aside the High Court judge’s decision to deny Ellis bail. However, Justice of Appeal Burgess, who presided with Justices of Appeal Kaye Goodridge and Margaret Reifer, refused to release the accused. The court said the strength of the evidence that [Ellis] had committed the killing; that he had admitted to it, albeit claiming it was done in self-defence and the fact that he had a previous conviction for manslaughter “weighed very heavily in favour of refusing bail to [Ellis]. “It must be that the public has every right to expect to be protected from persons who repeat offences involving the taking of human life.(SS)

PENSIONER’S MOUTH LANDS HIM BEFORE COURT – A pensioner believes he would not have landed before the law courts – for alledgedly assaulting a senior police officer – if he simply talked less and stayed at home to do his chores. Elwin Leon Young, 74, of Trellis Walk, Grazettes, St Michael expressed that view to Magistrate Douglas Frederick earlier this week when he appeared in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court charged that he assaulted Superintendent of Police Margaret Stephen as she executed her duty on March 5 as well as telling her to “move your **** off the sidewalk. I went to Central (Police Station) and get unfair . . .” He pleaded not guilty to the charges but Sergeant St Clair Phillips stated that Young looked as though he was in need of an intervention at the Psychiatric Hospital where he is an outpatient. The prosecutor also revealed that the accused man’s antecedents showed that he had a propensity for challenging members of the public and the police. “I does talk to much. I should be at home washing my clothes. I came to town to have breakfast,” Young stated before he was remanded to the Black Rock, St Michael institution for observation until March 26. (BT)

UNABLE TO AFFORD CAR INSURANCE, PLATES, FINES – A 46-year-old St Joseph man who appeared in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today was unable to pay fines after pleading guilty to a number of offences – including not having motor insurance he claims he could not afford. Derek Delisle Bullen, of Blackmans Development, St Joseph, admitted to Magistrate Graveney Bannister to driving without due care and attention, without reasonable consideration for other road users, fraudulent use of number plate and registration card, no insurance and failing to register the vehicle. PC Kevin Forde told the court that Bullen was driving along Canewood Road, St Michael, going to Lears junction when he veered into the path of traffic and collided with another vehicle. Police responded to the accident and a check revealed that the registration disc and licence plates did not match that of Bullen’s car. Bullen explained that he had bought the car and had possession of it for the last six months but “did not have the money for the insurance”. Describing the situation as bizarre, the magistrate imposed fines totaling $2,250. (BT)

‘BACKPACK CRAZE’ – The recent fad of young men walking around with haversacks has caught the attention of Bridgetown Magistrate Douglas Frederick, so much so that the judicial officer wants to know what is the fascination with the backpacks. “Why it is that every young person has a haversack on their back. What is contained in those haversacks — weapons, drugs?” the Magistrate asked Oswaldson Erickson Hutson Small in the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today. “Mine had in drugs sir,” the Lot No. 1 St Christopher, Christ Church resident responded moments after he had pleaded guilty to charges of possession, possession with intent to supply and possession with intent to traffic cannabis on June 7, 2015. Police were on patrol along the ABC Highway when they had the occasion to stop the vehicle that the accused was driving. The marijuana – estimated to fetch $90 on the street – was discovered in Small’s haversack after he consented to a search. “That was a case of helping out somebody. The person that own the car was drunk,” said Small who also disclosed that he used the drugs for about six years. “But I don’t do drugs or nothing so no more, sir. That’s why I come and deal with this. My girl caused me to change. I realise that to get a better life for myself I had to stop certain things,” he told Magistrate Frederick. Small’s conviction card revealed he had received chances in the past when he appeared before the court on two occasions for the same offence, resulting in a conviction, reprimand and discharge. This time around he was slapped with a $700 fine, which he must pay in one month if he wants to avoid spending one month in prison. (BT)

LIMIT CWI PRESIDENCY – There should be term limits on the presidency of Cricket West Indies (CWI).Speaking on Wednesday at a conference call press briefing streamed to regional media, presidential challenger Ricky Skerritt said no president should exceed six years in office. “The first change we (his team) would like to make if elected, would be to have term limits put in place. We believe that no president needs to serve longer than six years continuously. “Some people have said two three-year terms or three two-year terms, that will have to be discussed, a constitutional review committee will have to be put in place, and that has to be done internally without nay pressure from outside. “We are not going to be reacting to Caricom governments. We are going to be communicating, collaborating and cooperating with all stakeholders including Caricom governments and we have no doubt that we can find the kind of approaches that meet the needs of a future dynamic and progressive CWI,” he said. Jamaican, Wycliffe “Dave” Cameron, 47, is running for a fourth consecutive term as CWI president after being first elected back in 2013 when he took over from St Lucian diplomat Julian Hunte. He will be partnered again by vice-president Emmanuel Nathan. (SS)

WOEFUL WI BADLY BEATEN – England dismissed West Indies for just 45 – the second-lowest score in T20 internationals – to win the second T20 by 137 runs inSt Kitts and wrap up the series with a match to spare. Chris Jordan took four for six, the best figures by an England bowler in T20s, to skittle the dismal hosts in 11.5 overs. Sam Billings earlier hit a career-best 87 and Joe Root made 55as England recovered from 32- to post 182-6. England have an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. Only the Netherlands have scored fewer runs in a T20 international, making just 39 against Sri Lanka in the 2014 World T20. This was England’s biggest margin of victory by runs in T20s and the fourth biggest of all time. (SS)

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footnpaw-pieypata · 7 years

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“At night the sea is sad, the silence and the darkness are overwhelming and the waves are not seen, but when they come they are felt, and the boat is a blender, but there is no time to get dizzy and feel bad, There is no way to stop it. A storm in the sea is scary. ” This is not said by an inexperienced sailor but by Gaizka, a Basque with 36 years in the water.

He began at age 15, inheriting the job of his father. Today, at 51, 4 years away of retirement (seafarers retire 10 years before), he feels pain throughout his body and can not wait to give it a well-deserved rest. And even today, he continues to face the fear of the nights at sea. Although according to him, “now everything has changed. Technology allows us to go fishing with a trip plan to avoid storms (although we can not always do it). But it was hard before that. ”

But the hardness of their work is still represented in the long working hours and in the extreme physical conditions to which they sometimes have to contend. They can not afford to be sick because there were many cases of “smart guys” that said to be in bed and in fact they were not, but as they divided the payment in equal parts, they let the hard work be done by the others. The fishing season begins in February with the fishing of the verdel from the coast of Bermeo, and extends until the month of April, when Gaizka and all his companions of the ship Maria Digna Dos of Santander, “change work”, as he explains, and begin fishing for the tuna, offshore, for 7 months, in which they spend between 15 and 20 days per month on the high seas and visit the Galician coast. Those days for Gaizka are eternal, and reason is not lacking: the working days are 18 hours straight, without stopping. They wake up at 5.30 in the morning and fish until 12.30 at night, at which time they go to sleep those six precious hours, which become five as they must take turns for the night watch of one hour each (they are six crew members). Luck has whoever gets the first or last hour of the guard, because if you get the middle shift, they wake you up from your sleep and then you have to reconcile it quickly. “Why the guard? Because in the place where we are there can be between 30 and 40 boats, and it would not be good to crash”, Gaizka says.

For 36 years he has got on a boat, into the sea and fishing. There were times, during the year and outside of the tuna season, when the days began earlier for two main reasons: first, the ports were crowded with boats, side by side (“You could cross from side to side of the port Passing over the boats”, recalls Gaizka), so if you were late you had to wait hours for your turn to take the fish off the boat; And secondly, the sailors did not have a salary (this is still the same as today), but they gained in equal parts for what they fished. Therefore, the sooner they started, the more they could fish, and therefore, the more they would charge. There were no limits to the fishing quota. There were days in which they brought between 8 thousand and 10 thousand kilos of fish. But in recent years, in addition to drastically reducing the number of fishing vessels and sailors, a limit was applied to the fishing quota per season. Once that season quota is reached, which in the case of Gaizka is 106 tons, they must moor the boat and wait until the beginning of the next season, in February of the following year. Therefore the days begin later and at most they fish 3 thousand kilos of fish per day. The big problem occurs when that quota is reached before November. I ask Gaizka why because I could not understand what the inconvenience would be. “When we finish the quota, we automatically stop working until the following season, but in those months without a job, we live in unemployment, and it only covers three months of payment; if we finish in October, as was the case last year, we have to live the whole month of our savings without any salary “, he says.

The tourists walk through the streets of Bermeo and walk through its port, take photographs, enjoy the sea breeze, eat some pintxos at a bar, but they never stop to think about these sailors, who with their sore bodies move a millionaire market; But for the others. And it is a shame, since these fishing villages were made by the fishermen. Those men who had no way of planning a journey, embarked on wooden ships and surrendered to the good fortune of God.

I stop in their wrinkled faces and try to imagine what that first wave would feel when it hit the boat, predicting a storm in the darkness of the night. And I’d rather stop. The Basque coast is brave. I do not even want to think how it will be out in the open.

I shake hands with Gaizka and say goodbye. He tells me that tomorrow they will not come to work since the sale price is very low and they do not consider it fair. Before he leaves, he asks me a question that amazes me and makes me think of how the same thing can be seen as something dark and sad, or as the ideal of paradise: “Since you are from Argentina, could you tell me: Is there any nice beach where I can go to relax looking at the sea? ”

#travel #around the world #worldtour #travelphotography #wanderlust #adeventureoftravelling #travelblog #blogger #traveltheworld #instatravel #travelgram #passportready #travelpassport #postcardsfromtheworld #travelling #trip #instapassport #instavacations #spain

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brajeshupadhyay · 4 years

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Postmaster general testifies: Dems focus on mail voting, Republicans hone in on USPS funding

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee this morning. While many GOP senators focused on USPS’ funding, CBS News campaign reporter Cara Korte says Democrats were mostly concerned about mail and ballot processing. DeJoy stated, “There have been no changes made with election mail.” He confirmed that all ballots would be handled as first class mail, ensuring expedited delivery. But DeJoy wouldn’t promise that the 671 sorting machines that have been taken offline this summer will be replaced. When pressed by skeptical Democrats about recent changes that have lead to major mail delays, DeJoy often replied that such policy decisions were made before he became postmaster general, and he has since halted controversial changes. Democrats didn’t touch on DeJoy’s personal finances, even though it’s been reported that he has potential stakes in Amazon. Korte says that sources inside the American Postal Workers Union were generally unhappy with DeJoy in today’s hearing and accused him of being ambiguous and untruthful. Expect DeJoy’s Monday testimony before the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee to be more eventful. Meanwhile, over a half dozen Democratic attorneys general led by Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro filed a lawsuit against DeJoy and the U.S. Postal Service over changes they say could delay the delivery and return of mail-in ballots in the general election. CBS News campaign reporter Zak Hudak reports the lawsuit, announced Tuesday, followed another lawsuit that 13 attorneys general filed in Washington state earlier this week over USPS operational changes. This latest suit, filed in Pennsylvania federal court, argues that policy changes such as prohibiting overtime and extra delivery trips made at USPS were unlawful because they weren’t submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission and made public before they were implemented. Joining Shapiro were attorneys general from California, Delaware, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Maine and the District of Columbia. They say DeJoy’s policy changes violate the Constitution’s Elections Clause because they could interfere with states’ ability to regulate the “times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives.” They also argue that service changes that could disproportionately affect older voters’ ability to return mail-in ballots in time to be counted violate the 26th Amendment, which guarantees citizens the right to vote. The lawsuit requests that the court vacate the operational changes made at USPS in July and appoint an independent monitor to ensure the agency complies. FROM THE CANDIDATES JOE BIDEN The virtual Democratic Convention brought in real cash this week as the Biden campaign announced on Friday it raised $70 million dollars throughout the week. The campaign also says that 1.1 million people signed up with the campaign by text message. And while Joe Biden was the main focus of his nomination night on Thursday, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington garnered attention as well. In New Hampshire earlier this year, Biden met Harrington at an event and they bonded over a trait they share: stuttering. Holding up his speech, Harrington noted that the day he met Biden, he showed him how he marks his speeches for easier delivery. In the convention room with Biden for his primetime address, CBS News campaign reporter Bo Erickson noticed what appeared to be similar markings in Biden’s TelePrompTer. You can see the pictures here. On the upcoming GOP convention, Biden’s campaign along with the Democratic National Committee promised daily counter-programming and rebuttals. DNC chairman Tom Perez also dubbed the next convention: the “chaos convention.” PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga says the Trump administration and president’s re-election bid are furiously prepping for their turn, now that the Democratic convention is over. President Trump will appear every night of next week’s GOP festivities, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh confirmed Friday. In an interview with CBSN, Murtaugh noted, “it’s going to be a fairly unusual participation level by the president,” adding the party’s nominating convention will be “very focused on real people.” “The Democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history,” President Trump told audiences gathering at the Council for National Policy Meeting in Arlington, Virginia, Friday. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Council for National Policy is “a key venue where mainstream conservatives and extremists mix,” with fringe politics often prevailing. Tamping down expectations for election night, the president added that he does not expect “meaningful” election results on the evening of November 3. “I don’t think you’ll know two weeks later, I don’t think you’ll know four weeks later, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” the president said. In a Fox News interview Thursday night, Mr. Trump vowed to equip polling locations with law enforcement officials. “We’re going to have everything. We’re going to have sheriffs and we’re going to have law enforcement,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to have everybody, attorney generals. But it’s very hard.” CBS NEWS COVID CHRONICLES TRADE SCHOOLS IN TEXAS A major benefit of trade school is students attend in order to parachute right into the workforce. That reality has turned ironically null amid COVID-19. In May, CBS News campaign reporter Cara Korte spoke to many trade school grads about the struggle to find work. This week we caught up with Thuy Carroll, a pastry chef, who was hoping to be able to wait out the virus to find work, but when vet medical bills unexpectedly mounted she had to start making money. In response, Carroll just last week started her own baking company – named after her ailing pup, and run out of her home kitchen. “I’ve been looking for jobs at the Four Seasons and the higher-end hotels, and they’re just nonexistent right now,” she said. “It’s been a challenge. So, I was like, I’m just gonna pivot and see what happens.” CONVENTIONAL WISDOM PAYING IT FORWARD Ahead of what was originally slated to be a full-scale Republican National Convention in Charlotte, CBS News campaign reporter LaCrai Mitchell says the 2020 Host Committee (CLT Host 2020, Inc.) announced Friday that it would donate furniture to a local non-profit organization as part of its goal to further the Queen City’s economic development. In partnership with Beds for Kids 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, CLT Host 2020, Inc. will donate beds, dressers, tables, chairs, and bookshelves that will serve hundreds of families in the local area. According to the 2020 Host Committee website, the not for profit organization that was responsible for hosting and funding the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, also plans to donate $3.2 million to the Charlotte region through donations to a dozen local non-profits, a $500,000 grant to businesses and vendors negatively impacted by scaled-down events due to the coronavirus pandemic, and a $2 million discretionary grant that will serve as seed funding and support for creative initiatives that could jumpstart lasting economic growth in Charlotte. “I accepted the opportunity to serve as CEO of CLT Host 2020, Inc. for just this reason,” said CLT Host 2020, Inc. CEO John Lassiter. “As important as large-scale events can be to the hospitality and tourism industries, the value-add to the community is what most interested me.” ISSUES THAT MATTER ABSENTEE BALLOTS The United States Postal Service is confirming that workers cannot serve as absentee ballot witnesses while on duty, according to CBS News campaign reporter Adam Brewster. Ten states require absentee voters to get a witness signature or have their absentee ballot notarized for this upcoming election. This year, some states have suggested postal workers could serve as witnesses, but earlier this week, the Anchorage Daily News reported that USPS employees refused to serve as witnesses for some absentee voters during the primary. “Postal Employees are prohibited from serving as witnesses in their official capacity while on duty, due in part to the potential operational impacts,” USPS senior public relations representative Marti Johnson said in a statement Friday. “The guidance has not changed this year. The Postal Service does not prohibit an employee from serving as a witness in their personal capacity off-duty, if they so choose.” In March, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) listed “mail delivery persons” as potential witnesses for absentee voters. WEC spokesperson Reid Magney told CBS that officials in Wisconsin weren’t aware of the rule. “We didn’t know. We made an assumption that they could do it. Apparently this has been a policy for quite some time,” Magney told CBS News this week. UNEMPLOYMENT Data released by the Bureau of Labor on Friday shows that battleground states Florida and North Carolina are among a list of states with “unemployment rates significantly different” from rates reported in July 2020. CBS News campaign reporter LaCrai Mitchell reports that both states saw slight percentage increases in their state’s unemployment rates in the past month. In July, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity announced that the state’s unemployment rate for June 2020 was 10.4 percent, a 3.3% drop from the revised May 2020 unemployment rate of 13.7%. The latest report shows that Florida’s unemployment saw a 0.9% uptick to 11.3% in July. In North Carolina, the unemployment rate increased by 1 percentage point, from 7.5% in June to 8.5% in July. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is also the only Democrat in statewide office in the state, said in a statement Friday that “because Trump refused to come to the table” and negotiate additional coronavirus relief with House Democrats, Floridians lost federal unemployment assistance and again facing eviction. “Donald Trump’s incompetent response to the coronavirus crisis has thrown millions of Floridians into economic insecurity and his continued effort to downplay and distract from the pandemic clearly continues to cost Floridians their lives and livelihoods,” said Fried. “Our unemployment crisis will persist until we have a leader capable of getting the job done and executing a national strategy to control the coronavirus…” North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin released a statement Friday blaming the president’s coronavirus response for the continued economic strain on state’s workforce. “Nearly six months into this pandemic, our workforce and small business community are still suffering because of the Trump administration’s delayed, mismanaged response to the crisis,” said Goodwin. “His backwards priorities have made it clear that he is not capable of rising to this challenge…” ON THE $$$ CASH HAUL CBS News political unit associate producer Sarah Ewall-Wice reports presidential campaigns and political parties had a monthly filing deadline with the Federal Election Commission overnight, and new reports give more insight into the spending of the campaigns in July and their standing in the final months of the election season. The Trump campaign, RNC and its entities previously announced raising $165 million last month. Filings show the campaign also had $64.5 million in operating expenditures, while the RNC had $29.7 million in expenditures in July. Earlier this month, the campaign said the RNC and joint fundraising committees raised $1 billion across the entire cycle so far, but the new filings also show the entities combined have now spent more than $1 billion since the beginning of 2017. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign had previously announced it along with the DNC and joint fundraising committee raised $140 million in July, but the new filings show the Biden campaign had $58.7 million in expenditures last month while the DNC had $8.9 million in direct operating expenses not including transfers to other committees. Neither campaign’s joint fundraising committees face a filing deadline with the FEC for July numbers until later this fall. After wrapping up July, the Trump campaign and GOP entities said it had $300 million cash on hand; the Biden campaign and Democrats announced earlier this month they had $294 million cash on hand. NEWSMAKERS KANYE WEST It’s been a bad week for Yeezy in the Midwest, reports CBS News political unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro. A day after getting kicked off Wisconsin’s ballot, the Illinois State Board of Elections voted unanimously this morning to not certify Kanye West as a candidate in November, due to a lack of valid signatures. After a challenge and examination in the Chicago office of the SBE, 1,928 out of the 3,128 signatures filed by West were found invalid, so he fell 1,300 signatures below the minimum 2,500 needed. The board sustained the objection, which means West will not be on the ballot in his home state of Illinois. Minutes after the decision, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose invalidated West’s filing that state after information or signatures on his filings didn’t match. West also fell short in West Virginia by 761 signatures. His campaign did not respond to questions about whether the decisions would be appealed. He filed in Tennessee on Thursday and in Virginia on Friday. Both states’ filings are still under review, as well as Iowa and Minnesota, though West included them in a list of states where he says he will be on the ballot. STATE-BY-STATE CALIFORNIA Democrats in California have been dreaming about the possibility of an open U.S Senate seat and with Sen. Kamala Harris on the ticket, that might happen in January. Should Joe Biden and Harris defeat President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, California Governor Gavin Newsom will appoint a replacement for Harris to serve the remaining two years of her term. Democratic sources in the state tell CBS News campaign reporter Musadiq Bidar that Congressman Adam Schiff, Congresswoman Katie Porter, Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Baragan, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have all made calls to lobby constituencies for the job. Others, like Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Representatives Karen Bass and Barbara Lee, and former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis consistently come up in conversations as likely replacements. Top strategists, staffers, and state lawmakers in California explain the pressure points Newsom will face, the factors he’ll consider, and what the potential decision could mean for the state’s politics. WISCONSIN Republican legislative leaders in Wisconsin are urging the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to add a fourth debate and believe it should be held in the Badger State, reports CBS news campaign reporter Adam Brewster. The first presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is scheduled for September 29 in Cleveland. Clerks in Wisconsin must mail absentee ballots to voters who have requested them by September 17. “By the time the first presidential debate happens on September 29, 2020, voters in Wisconsin will have already started voting,” Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate President Roger Roth wrote in their letter to the CPD. “Wisconsinites who vote early deserve the same opportunity afforded to other states to hear the two competing visions for our country and make a well-informed decision when casting their vote.” Biden’s campaign has supported holding three debates, but earlier this month President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani requested a fourth debate be held in early September. In a letter on August 6, the CPD co-chairs denied the request. “While more people will likely vote by mail in 2020, the debate schedule has been and will be highly publicized. Any voter who wishes to watch one or more debates before voting will be well aware of that opportunity,” the co-chairs for the CPD wrote. CONGRESSIONAL COVERAGE IN THE HOUSE Massachusetts In their second debate, CBS News political unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro reports incumbent Congressman Richie Neal and challenger Alex Morse again argued over Neal’s 30-year record, as well as how to handle the economic crisis stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Morse and progressive groups like the Justice Democrats have played up Neal’s ties to special interests, trying to portray the incumbent as out of touch with the district. In response, Neal talked about being able to get federal funding for district projects, his record on Social Security and Medicare, and specifically hit Morse on saying he wouldn’t support the CARES Act. Their Democratic primary for Massachusetts’ 1st District is on Tuesday, September 1. QAnon House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Vice President Mike Pence were direct in their condemnation of the QAnon conspiracy extremist group, days after the president seemed to back the group by saying QAnon members like him and “love our country.” On Thursday, in an appearance on Fox News, McCarthy said there’s “no place” for the group in the Republican party. He said of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia GOP candidate who has supported conspiracies associated with QAnon, that she has denounced it. “But the real question will be, when you look to the Democratic party, to a Tlaib or Omar, to the anti-Semitic comments where the Democrats would not stand up,” he added. In May of 2019, the House passed a broad censure condemning “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry” after comments critical of Israel were made by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Greene, who once described Tlaib’s and Omar’s entry into Congress part of an “Islamic invasion,” told the Washington Examiner on Friday that QAnon doesn’t represent her campaign. “I was willing to post it and talk about it — and sometimes believe things that maybe I thought were true at the time, and then, no, no, I don’t think this is true. I’m not ashamed of that whatsoever,” she said. According to Navarro, this comes after a week of an assortment of clips of her talking about 9/11 and Seth Rich conspiracies surfaced, both theories within the QAnon network. New Jersey Congressman Tom Malinowski, a freshman Democrat in New Jersey’s 7th District, tweeted that constituents contacted him about a poll asking if he belonged to a “child sex ring.” Malinowski wrote, “That’s right – they are using a poll to push out the main QAnon conspiracy theory in our district.” The notion of a child sex trafficking ring is one of the central theories with QAnon, and has led to one man being arrested for firing an assault rifle in a DC pizza restaurant. The National Republican Campaign Committee quote-tweeted him, and wrote, “You lobbying to protect sexual predators isn’t a conspiracy @Malinowski. It’s a fact.” This referred to a story Republicans have been pushing, about Malinowski lobbying against a sex offender registry during his time at the Human Rights Watch organization. Malinowski told Navarro he had “no role whatsoever” on that issue, and during his tenure he was in a completely different department, focused on foreign policy and national security. He said the HRC had to fill out a lobbying disclosure form with everything the D.C. office divisions had worked on, including an effort against a 2006 crime bill that had provisions related to expanding who would be on the national sex offender registry. While he was listed, Malinowski said it had “all the people who did the advocacy on Capitol Hill, but that doesn’t mean everybody on that list worked on every issue that was on the list.” A former HRC colleague of Malinowski’s, Jennifer Daskal, said he had no involvement on domestic issues such as the effort against the crime bill. “Those I did independently of him, and did not consult or work with him on,” Daskal said.

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shadzennjakereak · 5 years

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Thoughts of a vulnerable man and well, it’s my life story. Kinda

~~So to lead this off, this was a mostly comprised as a message I would send to my closest friend. But well, for archival purposes I wanted to leave this here on my dead af Tumblr account because, well that is what I use it for afterwards. So if some things read somewhat oddly, it is probably due to it being written as a letter in sorts for someone.~~

------ Well... hm.... I'll hit on the major things kinda like I have when I have done therapy in the past. So uh... when shad was a young boy, roughly around 10, I was at a mom's side family Christmas party and me and my female cousin of the same age, Erin, was playing around. Another cousin of mine, whos name I forget, was roughly 15 years old brought us to the basement and pretty much tried to make us fuck. So yes, I was partially molested as a child, LUCKILY my young brain kinda knew this was not normal and grabbed my brother, while im fully naked, and well he got involved and stopped it. However the entire family outside of the immediate, sided with my older cousin and well my family got cut out of my mother's side. As for Father's side, well they are all in Maryland so I have never met them.

Now fast forward a few years, im a shy kid whatever nothing much happens. We get into Highschool where I have my friend group and this one girl I'm hard crushing on who so happens to be my closest friend. Her name was Micky, very weird girl, always cosplaying and well... Everyone assumed we were dating because well even at school we were always like cuddling and shit, HOWEVER we never did. She pretty much had a sugar daddy the entire time and the one time I knew in Senior year that she was single, I asked her out and well, was rejected and pretty from there we stopped interacting. So I not only lost my closest friend, but also well felt the pain of rejection of the one who I was in love with.

Now suddenly in highschool I'm desperate to get laid after getting rejected and well, turn to craigslist, find a milf who takes my virginity, cool. While that was very vanilla it was a fun learning experience. I did know my baseline kinks at this point. I kinda immediatly learned all that early into my life. Highschool was easy going more or less. I had great grades without trying much and looked decent, despite only having a singular relationship, back in 8th grade, at this point so I kinda never had that confidence in me. Hm... well highschool passes and I reject a couple small scholarships for wrestling because I'm an idiot. I enroll into Eastern Michigan University.

This would be my first time away from home pretty much ever and adulting for myself. It went terribly. This is what broke me and has been the root of my mental issues. I went to some classes, did fine, but this mother fucking Friday 2-d art class was from 8am - 6pm. I was going for a computer graphics animation degree which I absolutely love to this day, but well I despise drawing and that was all this class was. I hated it so much and couldn't even wake up for it that I stopped going. I got scared of how my parents would react and hid this information until the very end of the semester where they found out. I failed that class and another due to attendance (despite having an A in the class itself).

I agreed with my parents to retake those two courses. I did, but immediatly into I fell back into the slump. I was alone again, only person close to me was Dra, my roommate. My friends from highschool never contacted me, and I ignored family. I was utterly alone so I decided to attempt to take my life. Due to a miracle Dra was there and prevented this. So I lived. However as the year went on I grew scared and frightful of going home, so I ran. I decided to work at Cedar Point which is in Ohio and has on-boarding rooms. So I went there without telling my parents why.

Eventually my father would gank me at Cedar Point and I told him everything that happened. He was just disapointed, but happy to at least talk to me again for the first time in honestly 1.5years. While I was working there I made close friends, as Dra also worked here and I met others. I at least started to feel some happiness again since leaving highschool. I had one relationship with a girl while working there. It kinda ended due to her not accepting my kinks when I told her. I also had another girl who was interested in me, but she refused to date me because she didn't want to do Long Distance once we stopped working at Cedar Point for the season. Well, Cedar Point closed at the end of October for the 2016 season. I had to go back home.

I go back home with my family and just bum there. I am not looking for a job or looking to go back to class. I was only playing games, eating, and sleeping. Eventually my father got sick of my shit and got me a temp job at his workplace at the end of December of that year. I worked there for a month helping reorganize files for the Human Resources department to help them with their acquistion of another company. At the end of January 2017, they offered me a full-time job as a Human Resources Intern. I had no interest... but my father convinced me to take the job as a way to get paid schooling down the line. So I accepted.

Throughtout the year I do what I can, but my emotional state is all sorts of fucked. I am working a 8-5 job that is an hour away. I am not a morning person as you know. I wake up around 6am every day for this job and well, my body cant handle it. I got into a major car accident on my way home from work one day. I luckily had no injuries nor the person I hit, but my car got totalled. I continue working. I do what I can, but one of the woman I worked under hated my work. She was always critiquing me, giving me bs tasks to do, and just never really letting me feel like I do decent work, and never teaching me anything. I had no prior experience or education for this job for christs' sake! She wares down on my mental regularly.

It wasn't much better at home. My mother constantly is yelling at me to lose weight, that I look like shit, I need to take care of myself, I need to go back to school. She never complimented me. So my own Mother and this woman at work were 2 devils in my ears that broke me down more and more everyday with nowhere safe to hide. It destroyed me. However Acri comes along and says "Hi, here's Kelsey" around July of 2017. This was my first real girlfriend. Things were happy and great at first. She helped me with my mental and so on. However you know how her story arc goes.

Now back at work, it was October 2016. I get into another car accident after falling asleep while driving into work. I was right outside of the office when this happened, so everyone there knew this was happening. I get this taken care of with the police and the report. I go into my dad's office to avoid people as he offered to, and would let me file the insurance stuff. But, the woman who berated me regulary came knocking on the office door and saying "Hello? You ever going to come to your desk and actually do work today?" This is when I break... I shut the door on her and text my dad to come back asap. I tell him what happened and he agrees to fire me for unemployment benefits. I am unemployed yet again.

I go for most of October and November jobless. I eventually pick a job up at Panera Bread in December of 2017. I am still dating Kelsey, and we have met IRL a few times now. She despises my family due to a few stupid disputes. She refuses to hear rhyme or reason and just hates them without compromise. However working at Panera was nice. I met a lot of people there and was working evening shifts, so I had a regular sleep schedule that wouldn't cause driving accidents. While working there I need to leave home, my mother is still berating me and tearing me apart at home. I start looking into an apartment, and while doing so, Kelsey insists she needs to leave her home state of Pennsylvania. I feel like we are ready to move in together thinking things were okay. I settled on in apartment in June 2018.

After taking a week off, I move into the aprtment myself with my parents help, and Kelsey shortly after. My parents and kelsey had a major argument at this point. My parents insisted on having the apartment key to tidy up things while I spent the weekend driving to PA to move Kelsey's shit, and Kelsey despised this idea as anything my parents did was evil in her eyes. So they argued and argued. My mom also eventually would find my sex toy in my room back home and we had a major argument about those. She would call me the Devil's child and we never would really be on "friendly" terms again.

Well after moving Kelsey into my new apartment, I realize the mistake I made. She is useless as a human being. She does nothing to help around the apartment. I am working full time and the only one capable of driving. Kelsey would sit home and do nothing but eat and game. She did no chores, and if I asked her to, she would yell at me. We had no sex life either. She strung me along making me act like a father, driving her where she needed to go, buying her groceries, doing chores at home. I sacrificed everything and would never recieve anything in return. She eventually would break up with my at the start of February 2019. I was destroyed, but this was thankfully something that had to happen. While I was destroyed and heavily suicidal again, I eventually recovered and started going to therapy. Also mind you Kelsey was blaming me for things, she was saying how I needed to get better, how I was the lazy one, how I didn't do enough to make her happy.

So after about 2 weeks of devestation, I start recovering thanks to Acri and Nevan. They help me through this time, but I am however still stuck living with Kelsey for about 4 more months. She already has a new boyfriend. That, is oddly suspicious, but fine whatever. I play nice, I keep being Kelsey's father but I refuse to do any more cooking for her. She at the very least must feed herself. She starts to claim I'm abusing her and enjoy watching her suffer. March of 2019 she decides to have her new boyfriend visit. I am so against this and tell them to get a hotel room. Kelsey says they cant for a whole week, which was how long he was staying. We compromise on them having a hotel for the initial weekend, then they sleep on the couch of the apartment for the rest of the duration. Well this happens and I mostly just ignore them during this shit. Her new boyfriend, who was named in discord as, Dragon Daddy, finally leaves.

The following month Kelsey goes out to visit him, I finally have a week away from Kelsey. I feel great and so on. She eventually comes back, we get into more arguments on the regular. She eventually disappears randomly at the start of June 2019. The last month of the apartment. She is gone without saying anything and barely taking anything of hers. She doesn't respond to me for a days. I'm somewhat concerened but fine whatever. She eventually says she is gone and not coming back. She left her shit here though. Near the start of July I come back home from work. The apartment is TRASHED, about 50% of her stuff is gone. I guess she came by and took it without a word. She doesn't respond to messages. I move out in July and into a new apartment the following month.

Kelsey reaches out again and is asking to get the security deposit for our apartment, which I personally fully paid for. I tell her no and she has no claim to it. We argue about it until I block her because I refuse to deal with it. We packed the things she left at my apartment into boxes and send her a message that says she has one month to give us a shipping address or else it is all going into the trash. She responds with "Never contact me again, I refuse to talk to Jacob due to his abuse of me." I have not heard from her since.

And now we move onto the new stuff. I did start a new job in November of 2018 at Potbelly. It was nicer than Panera due to a lighter work load. And my life is starting to go up. I was recieving therapy which helped and eventually had to stop due to insurance not allowing more sessions. But I'm on an up trend. Things are going well, 13Noobz roster was going well until that exploded, so we talked and decided to find Lost Collective. It has its issues, but I am proud of it. And Due to LCST I have made wonderful new friends, and well of course Tay, being the best. I honestly do love you, and I'm happy to have met you and hope Acri makes you happy, as you deserve it. And of course everyone that has joined my Discord has been wonderful, and due to living with Brian, me and him have rekindled our brotherly bonds.

Of course I'm not perfect, especially mentally and physically. I don't look great, I still have depression, which definetly spikes up in Winter (seasonal depression). But, well, for now at the very least I can say I'm content with my life. I have friends who actually care about me for the first time, well ever. Acri has also recently come back into my life majorly which is nice. So I have my solid foundation of Nevan, Tay, and Acri. The 3 people closest to me. And of course I love interacting with the others. I just, well am not use to this. I haven't had friends since highschool, and definetly not ones who are as close to me as I am close to them. It's nice to have my own love and affection for my friends be returned in full.

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biofunmy · 5 years

Text

Iceland’s Purple Planes Are Grounded, and With Them, Its Economy

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — In retrospect, it was probably not a fantastic idea to leave Iceland’s economic fortunes tethered to an airline called WOW.

Before it collapsed in March, WOW Air delivered more than one-fourth of all international visitors to this ruggedly spectacular island nation. Its credulity-straining fares — $199 round trip from New York and San Francisco — were key elements of a tourism bonanza that lifted Iceland from its catastrophic 2008 financial crisis.

Now, five months after WOW’s purple jets ceased flying, Iceland is suffering a pronounced drop in tourists that threatens to push the country into recession.

The downturn completes a cycle not unfamiliar to the 350,000 people who live on this boom-and-bust-prone island. WOW cannily exploited the financial crisis, which made the country a more affordable tourist destination. Then WOW helped turn Iceland’s glaciers and waterfalls into the backdrop for countless selfies, bringing millions of visitors and propelling economic growth. Finally, WOW disappeared, sending Iceland back to trouble.

Tour companies, hotels, rental-car agencies and retailers now lament cancellations and diminished sales in the summer high season, forcing price cuts. Iceland’s central bank has warned that the economy is likely to contract this year, prompting governors to drop interest rates to the lowest level in eight years.

“We feel it,” said Solveig Ogmundsdottir, 70, a retired university librarian who knits multihued Icelandic caps emblazoned with images of puffins, selling them from a stand near the harbor in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. Her sales are down 20 percent this year, she said, a trend she traced directly to the demise of WOW.

“We are getting fewer Americans,” she said. “Now we have more people from Spain and Portugal. It seems to us that they have less money.”

The story of WOW Air is a classic tale of too much success yielding outsized ambitions that ultimately end in ruin.

Launched in 2011, the company was the brainchild of Skúli Mogensen, whose brash proclamations, irreverent marketing and penchant for adventure have drawn comparisons to Richard Branson, the entrepreneur behind Virgin Atlantic.

Mr. Mogensen aimed to turn Reykjavik into a major international air hub, exploiting its position near the top of the globe to transport passengers between North America, Europe and Asia, cutting the time of the traditional routes through London and Dubai. Iceland would be an enticing stopover, if not the final destination.

“Everybody thought I was crazy,” Mr. Mogensen said. “Maybe they were correct, and that made me want to do it more. I knew virtually nothing about the airline industry. My mission statement was ‘Impossible is just an opinion.’”

For a while, he looked like a prodigy. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of tourists visiting Iceland more than doubled to 1.3 million a year.

The growth reflected the force of social media in driving tourists to the filming locations of popular shows and movies. As fans of the blockbuster television series “Game of Thrones” learned that much of the action was shot in Iceland, entrepreneurs started tours of key locations.

Justin Bieber’s 2015 music video “I’ll Show You” showcased Iceland’s breathtaking Fjadrárgljúfur canyon, prompting tens of thousands of people to descend on the area. They used Instagram to share their experiences while tracing Mr. Bieber’s dangerous romp across an arresting ledge and into a glacially fed lagoon. So intense were the crowds that Iceland’s environmental authorities restricted access.

That same year, WOW extended service across North America. By 2018, some 2.3 million tourists arrived.

But as Mr. Mogensen acknowledged, WOW got carried away. In extending service to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and later to India, it added wide-body jets. New premium cabins complicated its business and added to its costs.

“One of the mistakes we made was moving away from that original vision,” he said.

As costs increased, profitability gave way to losses. By last year, Mr. Mogensen was frantically ditching unrewarding routes. He beseeched investors to extend more credit, and even pursued a rescue by the government. But early this year, the money ran out. Creditors seized the jets, grounding the airline.

Fannar Flosason, 30, a WOW software engineer, was home on paternity leave after the birth of his son when he received an email late one night delivering the grim news.

He has since taken a job at a local start-up, putting him among the lucky ones. “I know a bunch of people who worked at WOW Air who are still unemployed,” he said.

More than 600 of the 960 people laid off in March remained officially unemployed as of late July, according to the Directorate of Labor.

Birgitta Jondottir worked full time in the WOW payment system. She now works part time leading tours through tunnels threading a glacier near Húsafell, a two-hour drive north of Reykjavik. She stays there three or four nights every other week, leaving her 6-year-old son with her partner in the capital. “It’s been a little bit hard,” she said.

The WOW founder rejects responsibility for Iceland’s latest afflictions.

“Tourism got us out of the financial crisis,” he said. “We were the fastest-growing company in the history of Iceland. The tourist boom would not have happened if WOW had not happened.”

But now tourism is rolling backward, with the number of international visitors on track to drop by 16 percent this year compared with the year before, and numbers of Americans on pace to plunge by 20 percent.

The sudden shortage of Americans — widely celebrated as a free-spending people — is bemoaned by merchants of Viking-themed tourist tchotkes, by whale watching tour operators and by real estate agencies.

Reykjavik’s skies have in recent years filled with construction cranes erecting hotels and glass-fronted harborside condominiums. Americans have snapped up waterfront property with special eagerness. The end of WOW has cooled construction while making financing for new projects hard to secure.

“It is hurting everybody,” said Stefan Gudjonsson, head of research at Arion Bank, an Icelandic lender. “We are seeing projects put on hold, hotels especially.”

A worrying glut of unsold property has materialized, threatening the balance sheets of developers and their financiers.

“The supply of newly built apartments is very high,” said Vidir Kristjansson, general manager of Domus Nova, a luxury real estate agency. “Developers are having problems selling.”

Any mention of trouble involving banks may conjure terror in Iceland, where financial shenanigans and the resulting devastation in 2008 were monumental even by the standards of the global debacle.

But experts express confidence that a recession will not trigger a financial panic. After the 2008 crisis, bankers were sent to prison, and the government forced lenders to substantially increase the cash they reserve against bad loans.

Still, the downturn in the tourist trade constitutes a painful event, given that it is Iceland’s largest industry.

“It’s pretty bad for us,” said Gauja Helgudottir, who was overseeing the counter at the Icelandic Seal Center, a travel agency, seal-themed souvenir shop, seal museum, and research center in Hvammstangi, a fishing village of 58 people tucked into a fjord in the northwest of the country.

The center draws a lot of its visitors from roadside signs beckoning travelers on the main highway running north from Reykjavik. Given that WOW brought in budget travelers, many of them exploiting last-minute deals, its elimination has reduced spontaneous arrivals.

“It’s been a huge impact,” Ms. Helgudottir said.

So far this year, the number of visitors has plunged by more than one-third, she said. In previous summers, the center has added three or four full-time seasonal workers. This year, it has added only one part-time employee.

In Reykjavik, the decline is less easily detected. At shops downtown, tourists shell out $500 for Icelandic sweaters. They fill restaurants serving fish stew, grilled whale and smoked puffin. During the brief and tenuous dusk that passes for night in summer, people from around the globe jam into cacophonous nightclubs that pulsate until 5 in the morning.

But people who make their living on the tourist trade bemoan a palpable change.

“We can feel the pressure,” said Jana Arnarsdottir, 23, as she sets up for lunch service at Glo, a chain of vegan restaurants in Reykjavik. “This whole town is affected by tourism.”

Iceland’s unemployment rate spiked to 4.7 percent in May, compared with 2.9 percent in January. At the Reykjavik unemployment office, those out of work are growing resigned to settling for less-desirable jobs.

“It’s much harder now,” said Ivars Rapa, 48, a Latvian immigrant who recently lost his job at a fish processing factory that furloughed its several hundred workers.

The struggles of the fishing industry, a major piece of the economy, stem in part from concerns about fish stocks, which prompted the government to limit the catch. But WOW’s doom has amplified trouble. Fewer flights means fewer opportunities to export Iceland’s seafood.

Mr. Rapa recently applied for work at warehouses, in security, and at commercial kitchens. As of late July, he expected to gain none of these positions given the deteriorating economy.

“Tourists are not coming as they were before,” he said.

At Hestaland, a farm outside the town of Borgarnes that leads mostly American visitors on trail rides atop handsome Icelandic horses, the guesthouse has vacancies. “It used to be sold out all the time in July and August,” the owner, Gudmar Petursson, said. “Now, quite a lot, we have rooms.”

At Lake Myvatn, where tourists soak in natural hot springs and gape at pits of boiling mud, demand for local accommodation has plunged. Thuridur Helgadottir, 54, manager at Vogar Travel Service, has dropped prices by as much as half. She plans to shut down for four months this winter, a quieter season.

Yet beneath the concerns about Iceland’s economy, some harbor a sense that a dip in tourism may be healthy; a needed respite for an overwhelmed island.

“When the people who are coming are more about getting Instagram posts, and everyone goes to the same spots, then it’s overcrowded,” said Hordur Mio Olafsson, 32, whose family business leads tourists through lava caves near Húsafell. “What people are seeking here is pristine nature in this strange country in the North Atlantic, full of mystery. Now, we have a chance to do things properly.”

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