Bowling Ball Quotes

I remember Peyton [Manning] called me as soon as I got out to Denver. He started the conversation by asking me, ‘When did you get in?’ We mainly just talked to get familiar with each other.

Make no mistake: You will be challenged at some point in time. We all are. That’s just life.

If you want to be great, you have to be a leader. You’ve got to listen to me, son. That’s what we brought you here to do, to be a leader. And you can do it.

You can be a natural athlete with terrible work habits, and that ends up wasting your gifts.

I stood up to go shake hands with him and I don’t remember anything else. What I do recall is the crowd yelling and me crying, while everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Making it to the Super Bowl is something few and far between. Many football players never get the opportunity to make it that far.

It doesn’t matter how smart you are or what you know; if you learn to put those two things together, to let your pain drive your talent, you can become the best at anything you do in life.

My grandmother said, ‘It doesn’t really matter where you had to go, where you got the ring, or where you played the Super Bowl, all that matters is that you put in the work, you deserved it, and you earned it.

My mother—with all the embarrassment and hurt that she caused me in my youth—ended up giving me the drive and the fire I needed to be more and to do more.

I watched him pitch the ball at a table neatly lined with six bowling pins, my stomach giving a little flutter when his T-shirt crept up in the back, revealing a stripe of skin. I knew from experience that every inch of him was hard, defined muscle. His back was smooth and perfect too, the scars from when he’d fallen once again replaced with wings—wings I, and every other human, couldn’t see. “Five dollars says you can’t do it again,” I said, coming up behind him. Patch looked back and grinned. “I don’t want your money, Angel.” “Hey now, kids, let’s keep this discussion PG-rated,” Rixon said. “All three remaining pins,” I challenged Patch. “What kind of prize are we talking about?” he asked. “Bloody hell,” Rixon said. “Can’t this wait until you’re alone?” Patch gave me a secret smile, then shifted his weight back, cradling the ball into his chest. He dropped his right shoulder, brought his arm around, and sent the ball flying forward as hard as he could. There was a loud crack! and the remaining three pins scattered off the table. “Aye, now you’re in trouble, lass,” Rixon shouted at me over the commotion caused by a pocket of onlookers, who were clapping and whistling for Patch. Patch leaned back against the booth and arched his eyebrows at me. The gesture said it all: Pay up. “You got lucky,” I said. “I’m about to get lucky.

Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.

I'd been chased by Valkyries. I'd been chased by elves with firearms. I'd been chased by dwarves with a tank. Now, lucky me, I got to be chased by giants with giant bowling balls.

Oh, heads are going to roll for this. I’m going to set up a special lane and use their skulls for bowling balls.

I can’t believe I’ve missed this sport. It’s all about fingering holes and caressing balls.

I'm an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.

I'm so glad you're okay." "So, how do we celebrate my okayness? It's my day off. Let's go crazy. Glow-in-the-dark bowling?" "No" "I'll let you use the kiddie ball." "Shut up. I do NOT need the kiddie ball." "The way you bowl, I think you might." He grabbed her in an exaggerated formal dance pose and whirled her around, backpack and all, which didn't make her any more graceful. "Ballroom dancing?" "Are you INSANE?" "Hey, girls who tango are hot." "You think I'm not hot because I don't tango?" He dropped the act. Shane was a smart boy. "I think you are too hot for ballroom or bowling. So you tell me. What do you want to do? And don't say study.

Guy grabs my head like it’s a bowling ball and smashes it against his chest. “I said I’d never let anything happen to you again.

In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.

Shepley walked out of his bedroom pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?” “Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it. “Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.” “You knew she was going to class. Quit being a cry baby.” Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the cry baby? Do you remember last night?” “Shut up.” “That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?” “She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.” “So what are we doing?” “Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.” Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?” “How do you feel about a puppy?” Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.” I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.” “Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?” “I found a Cairn Terrier online. It’s perfect.” “A what?” “Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz.” Shepley’s face was blank. “The Wizard of Oz.” “What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.” “It’s going to crap every where, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and … I don’t know.” “So does America … minus the crapping.” Shepley wasn’t amused. “I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.” “You can’t keep it from barking.” “Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.” Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?” My brows pulled together. “Quit it.” His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog…” I grinned with victory. “…if you admit you have feelings for Abby.” I frowned in defeat. “C’mon, man!” “Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it. I looked to the floor, and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day. “I like her,” I said through my teeth. Shepley held his hand to his ear. “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.” “You’re an asshole! Did you hear that?” Shepley crossed his arms. “Say it.” “I like her, okay?” “Not good enough.” “I have feelings for her. I care about her. A lot. I can’t stand it when she’s not around. Happy?” “For now,” he said, grabbing his backpack off the floor.

He thought it was funny that she could hack a bloodthirsty demon to death, but something as natural as having a baby made her quake. Not that Kynan blamed her. He’d happily choose taking a bullet to the gut over squeezing a bowling ball out of his ass. Women were amazing.

There might be fighting, and you look like a hard stare could break a limb off,” I said in exasperation. Something beamed me in the back. I whirled, already shooting, but I’d been struck with a detached head—gross, yet not dangerous. Then another head came rushing toward me as if it were a bowling ball, and my legs were pins. I dodged out of the way only to have it turn in midair and smack me in the ass. “Stop it, you made your point!

I’m an Aristos. I don’t think you want to tangle with me. (Angelia) Like I give a shit. I’m a god, baby, so in the grand scheme of things, if I wanted to rip your head off and use it for a bowling ball, there’s not many who could stop me and most of those who could would be too afraid of me to even try. (Zarek)

Trying to make her angry is like trying to find a corner on a bowling ball.

One of the advantages bowling has over golf is that you seldom lose a bowling ball.

A mathematician is an individual who constructs space with 0D particles and then places a bowling ball on this invisible canvas to explain how gravity works.

Glory’s like a bowling ball. She gets picked up, fingered, and thrown in the gutter, and yet she still comes back.

Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you’re bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.

Mine was bright green with gold swirls. Adam's was black. "You have no imagination," I told him smugly. "It wouldn't hurt if you found a pink ball to bowl with." "All the pink balls have kid-sized holes in them," he told me. "The black balls are the heaviest." I opened my mouth, but he shut me up with a kiss. "Not here," he said. "Look next to us." We were being observed by a boy of about five and a toddler in a frilly pink dress. I raised my nose in the air. "As if I were going to joke about your ball. How juvenile.

Tonight I am riddled by this thick skull this white bowling ball zipped in the sad-sack carrying case of my face

Give me priests. Give me men with feathers in their hair, or tall domed hats, female oracles in caves, servants of the python, smoking weed and reading palms. A gypsy fortuneteller with a foot-peddle ouija board and a gold fish bowl for a crystal ball knows more about the world than many of the great thinkers of the West. Mumbling priests swinging stink cans on their chains and even witch doctors conjuring up curses with a well-buried elephant tooth have a better sense of their places in the world. They know this universe is brimming with magic, with life and riddles and ironies. They know that the world might eat them, and no encyclopedia could stop it

Prunella had once thought life in London would be all flirting and balls and dresses, hitting attentive suitors on the shoulder with a fan, and breakfasting late upon bowls of chocolate. She sighed now for her naïveté. Little had she known life in London was in fact all hexes and murder and thaumaturgical politics, and she would always be rising early for some reason or other!

I pointed to it. "Yuca," Noah said. I pointed to the dough balls. "Fried plantains." I pointed to a low bowl filled with what purported to be stew, but then Noah said, "Are you going to point, or are you going to eat?

The [bowling] ball flew out jerkily, sailed about four feet, hit the lane with a loud crack, and then promptly entered the gutter. Roman walked up beside me, and we silently watched the ball complete its journey. 'Are you always that rough with balls?' he asked finally. 'Most men don't complain.

It's the strangest feeling at the end of pregnancy: you look down at this huge belly and try to imagine how some little person, whom you haven't even met, is going to emerge from it any day and completely change your lives. First, you wonder how this pregnancy, to which you've grown so accustomed over much of the last year, can, with barely any notice, come to an abrupt end. Then you try to fathom how this baby is ever going to come out; your bowling ball stomach seems misproportioned for what lies between it and the outside world. And only then do you realize what it all means-that the easy part, pregnancy, is almost over, and it's time to gear up for the tough stuff: childbirth!

God works in mysterious ways, baby, and there is never more evidence of this than when your life is going along fairly well, actually sailing. The sensation of wind through your hair becomes, for an extremely brief time, commonplace. It is then that God lowers the cosmic boom. He will not show up; that is the kind view. The unkind view is that he sits back to watch with a high-ball and a bowl of nuts.

It's not even a full court shot. Blindfolded. Underhand. With a bowling ball. ~ Shelton

A brick could be used as a bowling ball. With how bad I bowl, a rectangle ball couldn’t possibly hurt my score, because in bowling you can’t get a lower score than zero

A bowling ball rolled through his head, diagonally from nape to temple; it paused and started back.

He was trying to buy his way into her knickers. She was enormously insulted... ...but it was rather sparkly...It was rather like having a bowling ball attached to her arm. She could live with that though.

Why did I, like thousands of others, have to carry a cross I hadn't chosen, a cross which was not made for my shoulders and which didn't concern me? Who decided to come rummaging around in my obscure existence, invade my gray anonymity, my meager tranquility, and bowl me like a little ball in a great game of skittles? God? Well, in that case, if He exists, if He really exists, let Him hide His face. Let Him put His two hands on His head, and let Him bow down. It may be, as Peiper used to teach us, that many men are unworthy of Him, but now I know that He, too, is unworthy of most of us, and that if the creature is capable of producing horror, it's solely because his Creator has slipped him the recipe for it.

America’s most famous feminist decapitated by a jagged chunk of flying glass. Her head went flying into the sixth row like some strange white bowling ball with a blonde wig pasted on it. They didn’t erupt into panic until the lights went out.

He is looking down into the toilet bowl. He sees a bright shiny red ball, about the size of his fist, covered with blood and bobbing jauntily in the yellowed water. It throbs in time with Ernest’s pulse. It is his heart.

I jumped up and ran after the words that trailed like the dangling string from an air ball, up and up, from branch to branch escaping. Then like a cracked bowl the fixity of my morning broke, and putting down the bag of flour I thought, Life stands round me like glass round the imprisoned reed.

Life is a great big beautiful three-ring circus. There are those on the floor making their lives among the heads of lions and hoops of fire, and those in the stands, complacent and wowed, their mouths stuffed with popcorn. I know less now than ever about life, but I do know its size. Life is enormous. Much grander than what we’ve taken for ourselves, so far. When the show is over and the tent is packed, the elephants, lions and dancing poodles are caged and mounted on trucks to caravan to the next town. The clown’s makeup has worn, and his bright, red smile has been washed down a sink. All that is left is another performance, another tent and set of lights. We rest in the knowledge: the show must go on. Somewhere, behind our stage curtain, a still, small voice asks why we haven’t yet taken up juggling. My seminars were like this. Only, instead of flipping shiny, black bowling balls or roaring chainsaws through the air, I juggled concepts. The world is intrinsically tied together. All things march through time at different intervals but move ahead in one fashion or another. Though we may never understand it, we are all part of something much larger than ourselves—something anchoring us to the spot we have mentally chosen. We sniff out the rules, through spiritual quests and the sciences. And with every new discovery, we grow more confused. Our inability to connect what seems illogical to unite and to defy logic in our understanding keeps us from enlightenment. The artists and insane tiptoe around such insights, but lack the compassion to hand-feed these concepts to a blind world. The interconnectedness of all things is not simply a pet phrase. It is a big “T” truth that the wise spend their lives attempting to grasp.

No part of me believes," I say, "that you struggle with first impressions." He brushes his thick hair up off his forehead, and it stays there, all except that one strand, of course, which is determined to fall sensually across his eyebrow. "Maybe you make me a little nervous." "Yeah, right," I say, spine tingling. "Just because you don't see me grabbing a mop every time you walk into a room doesn't mean I don't notice you're there." It feels like a bowling ball has landed in my stomach, a sudden drop. Then come the butterflies.

Hazel eyes a little too close together, like bowling ball holes.

The head butt, if done right, is a showstopper. It feels like a bowling ball has just exploded into your skull.

A bowling ball rolled through his head, diagonally from nape to temple; it paused and started back

Taking a couple short backup swigs, Flint’s crippling headache started to release its grip, sort of the way he imagined an octopus would release an inedible bowling ball.

Magic has its own weight, and that weight, the gravity of it, is pulling the fabric of reality like a bowling ball on a spandex sheet.

What's the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truckload of dead woodchucks? You can't unload a truckload of bowling balls with a pitchfork!

As they traveled the sun and moon dipped in the sky and then rose again, moving around them in a stately dance. In the summer months, at the top of the world, neither sank below the horizon. The sky was both dark and light, the sun a tiny pale ball and the moon a long thin crescent, lying on its back like a bowl. Then, for a time, the sun was directly below the moon, looking insignificant and weak.

Every finger in the room Is pointing at me I wanna spit in their faces Then I get afraid of what that could bring I got a bowling ball in my stomach I got a desert in my mouth Figures that my courage would choose to sell out now I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets I've been raising up my hands Drive another nail in Just what God needs One more victim

Tallie looked for something to throw, but considering the fact that she threw like a girl, she dumped that plan in lieu of grabbing her new iron and swinging it like a bowling ball between the bad man's legs, where it connected with a nauseating _thunk_.

Don’t be so dramatic, Magnolia. So you flashed your tits to the world. At least you’re still young and they look good. Just imagine if I showed my drooping bowling balls. I could have started a world war. Or at least instigated a minor economic depression.

If you were running away from me, down a straight hallway with an oiled hardwood floor, and I had a machine gun and a pointy mustache, I still couldn’t hit you with a bowling ball. But what are you doing? You should be running toward love, not away from it.

All those posters and PSAs and health class presentations on body image and the way you can burst blood vessels in your face and rupture your esophagus if you can’t stop ramming those sno balls down your throat every night, knowing they’ll have to come back up again, you sad weak girl. Because of all this, Coach surely can’t tell a girl, a sensitive, body-conscious teenage girl, to get rid of the tender little tuck around her waist, can she? She can. Coach can say anything. And there’s Emily, keening over the toilet bowl after practice, begging me to kick her in the gut so she can expel the rest, all that cookie dough and cool ranch, the smell making me roil. Emily, a girl made entirely of donut sticks, cheese powder, and haribo. I kick, I do. She would do the same for me.

I've tucked and tried to roll after that first spread-eagle spin but soon discovered the universal truth that bowling-ball-shaped objects bounce downhill much faster than do mannequin-shaped objects. In my current predicament, speed, obviously, was not my friend.

She looked like the well put-together mom I would never be. Of course, she wasn’t a full-time, single mom and therefore had time for things like hair appointments and manicures. Also, her body had not pushed four bowling balls out her vagina, so she had that going for her too.

Dr. S didn’t notice. “Do you remember the cartoons of Rube Goldberg? An inventor of the most ludicrous contraptions. You know: a lever is pulled, causing a boot to kick a dog, whose bark motivates a hamster to run on a wheel which winds a pulley that raises a gate that releases a bowling ball and so on? Until, at the end, finally, the machine does something incredibly mundane, like making a piece of toast. Yes? Well, as it turns out, that’s the world. All these incredibly complex, inscrutably intertwined Rube Goldberg machines that can only be seen in retrospect when something happens.

On the other hand, this was a guy who advised students to get over their fear of approaching by walking up to random women and saying, “Hi, I’m Manny the Martian. What’s your favorite flavor of bowling ball?” So I really didn’t have to worry about looking foolish in front of him. He created fools. At

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Should you tell your mother something if it is important when she is talking to company? I am six. GENTLE READER: Yes, you should (after saying "Excuse me"). Here are some of the things that are important to tell your mother, even though she is talking to company: "Mommy, the kitchen is full of smoke." "Daddy's calling from Tokyo." "Kristen fell out of her crib and I can't put her back." "There's a policeman at the door and he says he wants to talk to you." "I was just reaching for my ball, and the goldfish bowl fell over." Now, here are some things that are not important, so they can wait until your mother's company has gone home: "Mommy, I'm tired of playing blocks. What do I do now?" "The ice-cream truck is coming down the street." "Can I give Kristen the rest of my applesauce?" "I can't find my crayons." "When are we going to have lunch? I'm hungry.

would be funny if Mr. Piccolo resembled a piccolo, but he doesn’t. Actually, he’s quite round. More like a bass fiddle. He has a big pouch of a belly that stretches the oversized turtleneck sweaters he always wears. He has a round face, too. He’s mostly bald and his scalp shines like a bowling ball. He wears square eyeglasses, which are always sliding down

But you are lucky. You are going to live. The one ball that might have killed you just pushed your intestines aside - like a marble dropped into a bowl of spaghetti.

while you play bowling with one ball you will be late because untill come in that ball it's need time so you need more than one ball in order to defeat the whole army .

Ruth was funny. Her bowling was awful; she just sort of paddled up to the line and dropped the ball. Plok.

You know what?” he said. “If I were to die or something, you know what I would do?” He didn’t wait for me to say anything. “I’d stick around,” he said. “I’d stick around a while.

I've been scraping little shavings off my ration of light And I've formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more onto it I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache Under a loose board in the floor And I blow across it and I send it to you Against those moments when The darkness blows under your door Isn't that what friends are for?

At the bowling alley, Sam’s giant hands selected a marbled red ball and flung it through the air so that it could land on the oiled alley like a swan and score him, yes, his third strike.

And so the game went on in this manner, a throng of children playing keep-away from a bowling ball tossed back and forth between two plump ogres. The air filled with shrieks and cheers and shouts of laughter as daring players thrilled at the sport. That is, all but the few poor souls knocked flat and captured. No laughter rose from behind bars because those in the birdcage knew what was in store. They would soon be lunch for a couple of hungry ogres. Now you might be thinking—didn’t Gavin call it fun when he was swallowed by a wolf earlier? And didn’t he tell that raven-haired girl it doesn’t hurt to be swallowed whole by a bear? All true, all true. But here’s a secret you might not know. Ogres chew their food. Luckily, it’s only the first bite that stings.

Cecelia felt like a much larger alarm should sound every time someone in school said or thought or did something enormous and life-changing, something that their adult selves would remember for the rest of their lives, every time a bowling ball began its heavy roll. But of course then that alarm would sound constantly, all day long, and no one would be able to learning anything at all.

The head rolls over on its face (the feathers in its mouth make a horrid crumpling sound) and falls out of the refrigerator. It thuks to the floor and rolls toward him like a hideous bowling ball, its blood-matted hair changing places with its grinning face; it rolls toward him leaving a gluey trail of blood and dismembered bits of feather behind, its mouth working around its clot of feathers.

That ignores the amplitudes of the branches. The contribution of the bowling ball to the energy of the universe isn’t just the mass and the potential energy of the ball; it’s that, times the weight of its branch of the wave function. After the splitting it looks like you have two bowling balls, but together they contribute exactly as much to the energy of the wave function as the single bowling ball did before.

On our first date, he bought me a taco, talked at length about the ancients’ theories of light, how it streams at angles to align events in space and time, that it is the source of all information, determines every outcome, how we can reflect it to summon aliens using mirrored bowls of water. I asked what the point of it all was, but he didn’t seem to hear me. Lying on the grass outside a tennis arena, he held my face toward the sun, stared sideways at my eyeballs, and began to cry. He told me I was the sign he’d been waiting for and, like looking into a crystal ball, he’d just read a private message from God in the silvery vortex of my left pupil.

the offensive player should know how to put her full focus on the ball, not the player with the ball, to always be alert for interceptions, shift quickly to offense after an interception, and move the ball into her team’s scoring zone.

From a distance the head is a bowling ball on the shoulders, but not so: a carapace and inside, the contents are what children call "gushy." The soft brain has its own improbable life containing galaxies, tens of thousands of people met, the microcosm of life in one place and on the diaphanous and often filthy cloth of memory, hanging there and battered on the clothesline in so many years of bad weather, wet and stiff with ice or blasted by sun and heat, part of it in shreds. (From the poem, 'Round')

You’re saying our lives are like light waves/quanta?” JB asked. “We have fate and free will all at once?” “Exactly!” Jonah said. JB was rubbing his forehead. “I’d have to double-check to see what scientists in this time period think about light, to really know how to answer you without ruining time,” JB said. “The problem is, if you don’t know if you’re riding a wave or a quantum packet of light, how do you make your choices? How do you decide how to live your life? How do you know what’s important?” “Well, it seems like things work out best when time travelers try to help people,” Jonah said, shrugging. He thought about how long it’d taken him to realize that he should give Mileva the Elucidator. Back in 1611 he’d been slow about figuring out how to help too. And in 1600 he’d been a total idiot about his priorities. “But which people are you supposed to help?” JB asked, sounding as if he really wanted to know. “I’ll go back to the Einstein analogy you used before, about the bowling ball on the trampoline, changing the paths of the little marbles around it. Time travelers always thought Einstein was

Bowling is like any sport,” he says, and I think he’s mostly talking to himself. “Pros make it look easy, so anyone thinks they can do it. But it’s not easy. You think too much and suddenly the ball is shooting out of the gutter and flying three lanes down and you’re kicked out of the alley for recklessness.” I press my lips together to hold in my laugh. “I’m not great at bowling, but I don’t think I’ve ever thrown the ball so hard it jumped three lanes over.” Cole stares stoically down the lane. “Well, it happens.” “Have you done that before?” “Don’t worry about it.

Summer in England   THOSE WORDS ARE SUPPOSED TO CONJURE UP HALCYON SUNNY afternoons; the smell of new-mown hay, little old ladies on bicycles pedaling past the village green on their way to the church jumble sale, the vicar’s tea party, the crunching sound of a fast-bowled cricket ball fracturing the batsman’s skull, and so on.

Your hair grows by itself, your heart beats by itself, and your breath happens pretty much by itself. Your glands secrete the essences by themselves and you do not have voluntary control over these things, and so we say they happen spontaneously. So, when you go to bed and try to go to sleep you interfere with the spontaneous process of going to sleep. If you try to breathe real hard you will find you get balled-up in your breathing. So if you are to be human, you just have to trust yourself to go to sleep, to digest your food, and to have bowel movements. Of course if something goes seriously wrong and you need a surgeon that is another matter, but by and large the healthy human being does not from the start of life need surgical interference. One lets it happen by itself, and so with the whole picture that is fundamental to it. You have to let go and let it happen, because if you don’t then you are constantly going to be trying to do what happens easily only if you do not try. When you think a bit about what people really want to do with their time, and you ask what they do when they are not being pushed around or somebody is telling them what to do, you find they like to make rhythms. They listen to music and they dance or they sing, or perhaps they do something of a rhythmic nature like playing cards, bowling, or raising their elbows. Given the chance, everybody wants to spend their time swinging.

The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins and knees switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front. The balled sinews of his calves switched to the front of his shins, each big knot the size of a warrior’s bunched fist. On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child. His face and features became a red bowl: he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn’t probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram’s fleece reached his mouth from his throat.

For the briefest of instants, a miles-wide hole appeared from the middle of the Earth to the top of the sky. The Moho rang like a tuning fork in harmonic response to the billion megaton impact. Seismic waves propagated in all directions, some dampening as normal, others amplified harmonically as Earth’s interior quivered like a bowl of pudding. Seismometers spiked wildly, their needles bouncing back and forth like pin-balls. A billion megatons exploded outward from the depths of the quivering Moho blasting a crater eighty-five miles in diameter and spewing billions of tons of superheated rock twelve hundred miles into space. In the blink of an eye the Earth grew a tail, as a mushroom cloud visible from Mars formed and spread, black as the Devil's eye.

I nudged her shoulder with mine, gently. “Let’s not think of the hurts right now.” I patted Rainbow in front of me. “It’s only about Rainbow and Pink Streak tonight. Mano a mano.” “Our bowling balls are male?” “Chica a chica.” Avery laughed. Marcus called, “Is the girl talk portion of this evening done with? Avery, we got a game to win.” “My rainbow ball laughs in the face of your arrogance,” I told him. “There’s nothing wrong with feeling sure of yourself,” Marcus countered. “Said the lone camper when he didn’t realize a hungry lion was behind him.” “What?” I placed my ball with theirs. Avery did the same, snickering under her breath. Marcus looked at his brother. ‘What the hell?” Caden shrugged, sitting down behind the score sheet. “Just nod and smile. That’s what I do

Remove the dough from the mixing bowl onto the counter and gather it up in your hands in a rough ball. The dough should feel soft. Bring the full length of your thumbs into the center of the ball so that they meet, and stretch the dough from the center out, as if opening a book, into an oblong shape. Turn the dough a quarter turn and stretch it again the same way, creating a smooth ball. Transfer the dough to a

Ribbons, balloons, paper flowers, candies, diapers, and dolls. An aarti tray was set up by the shrine. A long table was covered in confetti and an assortment of food: little square cakes that resembled building blocks spelling out “Welcome Baby Shah,” cups with veggie dip and long slivers of vegetables, lettuce wraps, and a watermelon carved into a baby stroller filled with fruit balls. Alongside that were silver platters of warm vegetable samosas and bowls of a dark green chutney with spicy jalapeño, and sweet date and tangy tamarind chutney. Potato and onion pakora came next, fried golden brown with hints of green herbs and creamy raita. I knew I had to get some dabeli before those went fast and plucked a small bun of what was essentially a spiced potato burger topped with peanuts and pomegranate seeds. There was, of course,

Take this message to your people, you obsequious little worm,” I murmured. “Anyone who lays a hand on Jordan Amador will have to answer to me. Now do me a favor and go to hell.” I removed my sword from his hand and then decapitated him. His severed head tumbled across the floor like a wayward bowling ball. Good riddance. I set my sword aside, found a stool in the corner, and climbed up in front of Jordan. Her handcuffs were attached to a huge meat hook bolted into the ceiling. I lifted her off of it with great care, unsure if she had the strength to stand. As soon as her arms were free, she looped them around my shoulders and pressed her face against my neck. She was trembling, but not crying. I sank to the floor and cradled her in my lap, breathing out the last of my anger now that she was safe. “‘M sorry,” she mumbled in a small voice. “I’m so sorry, Michael.” I snorted. “What the hell do you have to apologize for? You got kidnapped. Pretty sure that’s not your fault.” She shook her head, her words partially muffled as she pressed her face against my shirt. “Should’ve been stronger. I could’ve gotten you killed.” “By Heckle and Jeckle here? Not likely.” A shaky laugh rattled through her. She slid her fingers into the hairs along the nape of my neck and hugged me tighter. I knew from experience she didn’t want me to see her face because she knew she was only seconds away from breaking down. No one would ever accuse Jordan Amador of being a crybaby, not if she could help it. It was a ridiculous notion at best, but I indulged her anyway. “Thank you.” “Just doing my job. But you’re welcome.” I smoothed the sweaty hairs away from her forehead enough to kiss it. She didn’t move away. We stayed there for a while without speaking, just clinging to each other until we felt strong enough to separate.

Now, we’d had goldfish before. We won them at a church fair by throwing ping-pong balls into the little bowls they were swimming in. They didn’t live very long though. Mom said it was because the fish all had concussions from being hit on the head with the ping-pong balls. I had a concussion once when I was four, after I accidentally ran into the front door that Mark accidentally slammed shut just as he accidentally yelled, “Run, Tom, run.” That was back when he was just mostly evil.

Orange fluff ball, Rocky is an 18-pound marvel of love, so fluffy, he looks like he’s 26 pounds. He scares the local dogs just by sitting and staring at them. Rocky’s there for me when I get home, purrs when he wants to, leads me to the food bowl when he needs to, licks me in an attempt to heal my wounds, loves cellophane, red ribbons, left over chicken. Rocky, my best friend, is my orange fluff ball, and I wish I could share him with the world. -- Scott C. Holstad, Northern Stars Magazine (2004)

Jaclyn’s Snickerdoodle Recipe Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup BUTTER, softened 1 teaspoon pure vanilla 2 eggs 2-3/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon AND a secret ingredient! 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (cookies are good without the nutmeg, but sooo good with it) Instructions: Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine first four ingredients and mix well In separate bowl combine flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda. Then mix into creamed mixture. Blend well to avoid flour clumps! Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Combine the 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Roll each dough ball in the sugar mixture and place on a cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake approximately 10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet immediately and allow to cool. ENJOY warm or allow to cool. Serve with cold milk or hot beverage of your choice. These keep best in the refrigerator if they last more than a few minutes!!

Beside him Mr. Harris folded his morning newspaper and held it out to Claude. "Seen this yet?" "No." "Don't read it," Mr. Harris said, folding the paper once more and sliding it under his rear. "It will only upset you, son." "It's a wicked paper... " Claude agreed, but Mr. Harris was overspeaking him. "It's the big black words that do it. The little grey ones don't matter very much, they're just fill-ins they take everyday from the wires. They concentrate their poison in the big black words, where it will radiate. Of course if you read the little stories too you've got sure proof that every word they wrote above, themselves, was a fat black lie, but by then you've absorbed a thousand greyer ones, and where and how to check on those? This way the mind deteriorates. The best way you can save yourself is not to read it, son." "No, I... " "That's right, if you're not careful," Mr. Harris went on, blue-eyed, red-faced, "you find yourself pretty soon hating everyone but God, the Babe, and a few dead senators. That's no fun. Men aren't so bad as that." "No." "That's right, you begin to worry about anyone who opens his mouth except to say ho it looks like rain, let's bowl. Otherwise you wonder what the hell he's trying to prove, or undermine. If he asks what time it is, you wonder what terrible thing is scheduled to happen, where it will happen, when. You can't even stand to be asked how you feel today - he's probably looking at the bumps on you, they may have grown more noticeable overnight. Soon you feel you should apologize for standing there where he can watch you dying in front of him, he'd rather for you to carry your head around in a little plaid bag, like your bowling ball. There's no joy in that. Men aren't so very bad." Mr. Harris paused to remove his Panama hat. Water seeped from his knobby forehead, which he mopped with a damp handkerchief. "I've offended you, son," he said. "Not at all, I entirely agree with you." Mr. Harris replaced his hat, folded his handkerchief. "I shouldn't shoot off this way," he said. "I read too much." "No, no. You're right...

One night, he left Stephen and me in the arcade and rushed off to a – this hurt my feelings – “real” game. That night, he missed a foul shot by two feet and made the mistake of admitting to the other players that his arms were tired from throwing miniature balls at a shortened hoop all afternoon. They laughed and laughed. ‘In the second overtime,’ Joel told me, ‘when the opposing team fouled me with four seconds left and gave me the opportunity to shoot from the line for the game, they looked mighty smug as they took their positions along the key. Oh, Pop-A-Shot guy, I could hear them thinking to their smug selves. He’ll never make a foul shot. He plays baby games. Wa-wa-wa, little Pop-A-Shot baby, would you like a zwieback biscuit? But you know what? I made those shots, and those songs of bitches had to wipe their smug grins off their smug faces and go home thinking that maybe Pop-A-Shot wasn’t such a baby game after all.” I think Pop-A-Shot’s a baby game. That’s why I love it. Unlike the game of basketball itself, Pop-A-Shot has no standard socially redeeming value whatsoever. Pop-A-Shot is not about teamwork or getting along or working together. Pop-A-Shot is not about getting exercise or fresh air. It takes place in fluorescent-lit bowling alleys or darkened bars. It costs money. At the end of a game, one does not swig Gatorade. One sips bourbon or margaritas or munches cupcakes. Unless one is playing the Super Shot version at the ESPN Zone in Times Square, in which case, one orders the greatest appetizer ever invented on this continent – a plate of cheeseburgers.

If words are dead ends, then metaphors are doors that I can try to open up. When you compare pain to another thing, those that are listening can fill in the abstraction with their own interpretations. My friend’s pain was a bowling ball and mine is something like a tarantula who’s using my body as her nest. I can feel her pulling up my oesophagus, the lump of her body balancing at the edge of my throat. I swallow her down, but eight legs means she works her way back up again quickly. Fighting the pain is tiring, so eventually I fall asleep and when I wake up there are a few delicious seconds of quiet when I’ve forgotten what’s happened. But then I feel the bristle of her legs scraping against the pink smoothness of my gut and I remember. It seems like a fault of nature that my unconscious mind could be so cruel. Maybe now that I can explain the pain a bit more, those who hear me will share in that feeling? Take some of it away with them?” Excerpt From Notes on Heartbreak: The must-read book of 2022 Annie Lord This material may be protected by copyright.

Wasim Akram and Waqar could win a World Cup on their own. When Wasim bowled, the ball had a mind of its own. It could be placed on the same spot, repeatedly on a good day, but it also leapt up, cut left, cut right, swung in, swung out. It was as if it was being operated by a remote control. His run-up was reportedly 17 paces, but it felt like six super quick steps and a left arm that was invisible to the eye. He was the combination of every single tape ball bowler in Pakistan’s street cricket history. When Wasim bowled, it felt like anything could happen.

Waqar Younis arrived as a child, but a fully grown man. For five years, the only thing that slowed down his deliveries were stumps and toes. His superpower seemed to be that his torso could detach from his waist, turn all the way back and then hurl the ball from a wind-up that mortal spines could not maintain. You knew where he was going to bowl it, how it was going to get there, how fast it would come, and what would happen if you missed it. Still, you were out. From 1990 to 1994 Waqar took a wicket every 32 balls in Test cricket. No one has ever done better for that long. Ever.

Winter was come indeed bringing with it those pleasures of which the summer dreamer knows nothing—the delight when the fine and glittering day shows in the window, though one knows how cold it is outside; the delight of getting as close as possible to the blazing range which in the shadowy kitchen throws reflections very different from the pale gleams of sunlight in the yard, the range we cannot take with us on our walk, busy with its own activity, growling and grumbling as it sets to work, for in three hours time luncheon must be ready; the delight of filling one's bowl with steaming café-au-lait—for it is only eight o'clock—and swallowing it in boiling gulps while servants at their tasks come in and out with a, 'Good morning: up early, aren't you?' and a kindly, 'It's snug enough in here, but cold outside,' accompanying the words with that smile which is to be seen only on the faces of those who for the moment are thinking of others and not of themselves, whose expressions, entirely freed from egotism, take on a quality of vacillating goodness, a smile which completes that earlier smile of the bright golden sky touching the window-panes, and crowns our every pleasure as we stand there with the lovely heat of the range at our backs, the hot and limpid flavour of the café-au-lait in our mouths; the delight of night-time when, having had to get up to go shiveringly to the icy lavatory in the tower, into which the air creeps through the ill-fitting window, we later return deliciously to our room, feeling a smile of happiness distend our lips, finding it hard not to jump for sheer joy at the thought of the big bed already warm with our warmth, of the still burning fire, the hot-water bottle, the coverlets and blankets which have imparted their heat to the bed into which we are about to slip, walled in, embattled, hiding ourselves to the chin as against enemies thundering at the gates, who will not (and the thought brings gaiety) get the better of us, since they do not even know where we have so snugly gone to earth, laughing at the wind which is roaring outside, climbing up all the chimneys to every floor of the great house, conducting a search on each landing, trying all the locks: the delight of rolling ourselves in the blankets when we feel its icy breath approaching, sliding a little farther down the bed, gripping the hot-water bottle between our feet, working it up too high, and when we push it down again feeling the place where it has been still hot, pulling up the bedclothes to our faces, rolling ourselves into a ball, turning over, thinking—'How good life is!' too gay even to feel melancholy at the thought of the triviality of all this pleasure.

too. -In the Jets Super Bowl III win over the Colts, Matt Snell would put together the first 100 yard rushing game in Super Bowl history when he carried the ball 30 times for 121 yards and a touchdown. -Singer Aaron Neville was the first person to sing the national anthem at two different Super Bowls. He first did it at Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans and then did it again at Super Bowl XL in Detroit. -Quarterback Joe Namath won the MVP Award of Super Bowl III without even throwing a touchdown pass. -At one point in Super Bowl XLI the Colts called eight straight rushing plays and all of them were hand offs to running back Dominic Rhodes. --Cowboys running back Duane Thomas was the

22 grams cinchona bark 4 grams dried hawthorn berries 8 grams dried sumac berries 2 grams cassia buds 3 cloves 1 small (2-inch) cinnamon stick, preferably Ceylon cinnamon 1 star anise 12 grams dried bitter orange peel 4 grams blackberry leaf 51⁄4 cups spring water 50 grams citric acid 2 teaspoons sea salt 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 1⁄2-inch sections Finely grated zest and juice of 2 limes Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon 1⁄2 cup agave syrup Combine the cinchona bark, hawthorn berries, sumac berries, cassia buds, cloves, cinnamon, and star anise in a spice mill or mortar and pestle and crush into a coarse powder. Add the orange peel and blackberry leaf, divide the mixture among three large tea baskets or tea bags, and put a few pie weights in each. Bring the water to a boil in a large stainless-steel saucepan. Add the tea baskets, citric acid, and salt. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the lemongrass, cover partially, and let simmer 15 minutes longer. Add the lime and lemon zests and juices and let simmer, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced by a little less than half, making about 3 cups. Remove from the heat and remove the tea balls. Pour the agave syrup into a bowl. Set a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl and strain the tonic into the syrup. You will need to work in batches and to dump out the strainer after each pour. If the tonic is cloudy, strain again. Pour into a clean bottle and seal. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.

And then she set to work, washing fresh blueberries that sat on the counter, before grabbing a big colander. Sam headed into the backyard, whose lawn backed acres of woods. Blackberries and raspberries grew wild and thick in the brambles that sat at the edge of the woods. Sam carefully navigated her way through the thorny vines, her thin running shirt catching and snagging on a thorn. "Darn it," she mumbled. Blackberries are red when they're green, she could hear her grandfather telling her when they used to pick the fruit. But today, a brilliant summer day, the blackberries were deep purple, almost black, and each one resembled a mini beehive. Sam plucked and popped a fresh blackberry, already warm from the sun, into her mouth, savoring the natural sweetness, and picked until her colander was half full before easing her way through the woods to find a raspberry bush thick with fruit. She navigated her way out of the brambles and headed back to the kitchen, where she preheated the oven and began to wash the blackberries and raspberries. Sam pulled cold, unsalted butter from the fridge and began to cube it, some flour and sugar from the cupboard, a large bowl, and then she located her grandmother's old pastry blender. Sam made the crust and then rolled it into a ball, lightly flouring it and wrapping it in plastic before placing it in the refrigerator. Then she started in on the filling, mixing the berries, sugar, flour, and fresh orange juice.

This, I have consistently experienced in Life – that no matter how grave the circumstances are, it is not over, to use a cricketing term, until the last ball is bowled! So, even if it seems like a dead-end, a no-go situation, celebrate being alive. It may be dark all around you, there may be no light visible at the far end, everyone, and everything, may appear to be going against you…but do not give up yet. The only evidence that things will turnaround is that you are still alive. And that is a huge, huge, blessing! For, if you still have the gift of this lifetime, then anything is possible! So, bow your head down in complete surrender, in eternal gratitude and give in to Life, just flow with it! This is how you last through a numbing crisis!

Because this tea kaiseki would be served so soon after breakfast, it would be considerably smaller than a traditional one. As a result, Stephen had decided to serve each mini tea kaiseki in a round stacking bento box, which looked like two miso soup bowls whose rims had been glued together. After lifting off the top dome-shaped cover the women would behold a little round tray sporting a tangle of raw squid strips and blanched scallions bound in a tahini-miso sauce pepped up with mustard. Underneath this seafood "salad" they would find a slightly deeper "tray" packed with pearly white rice garnished with a pink salted cherry blossom. Finally, under the rice would be their soup bowl containing the wanmori, the apex of the tea kaiseki. Inside the dashi base we had placed a large ball of fu (wheat gluten) shaped and colored to resemble a peach. Spongy and soft, it had a savory center of ground duck and sweet lily bulb. A cluster of fresh spinach leaves, to symbolize the budding of spring, accented the "peach," along with a shiitake mushroom cap simmered in mirin, sake, and soy. When the women had finished their meals, we served them tiny pink azuki bean paste sweets. David whipped them a bowl of thick green tea. For the dry sweets eaten before his thin tea, we served them flower-shaped refined sugar candies tinted pink. After all the women had left, Stephen, his helper, Mark, and I sat down to enjoy our own "Girl's Day" meal. And even though I was sitting in the corner of Stephen's dish-strewn kitchen in my T-shirt and rumpled khakis, that soft peach dumpling really did taste feminine and delicate.

Comparing marriage to football is no insult. I come from the South where football is sacred. I would never belittle marriage by saying it is like soccer, bowling, or playing bridge, never. Those images would never work, only football is passionate enough to be compared to marriage. In other sports, players walk onto the field, in football they run onto the field, in high school ripping through some paper, in college (for those who are fortunate enough) they touch the rock and run down the hill onto the field in the middle of the band. In other sports, fans cheer, in football they scream. In other sports, players ‘high five’, in football they chest, smash shoulder pads, and pat your rear. Football is a passionate sport, and marriage is about passion. In football, two teams send players onto the field to determine which athletes will win and which will lose, in marriage two families send their representatives forward to see which family will survive and which family will be lost into oblivion with their traditions, patterns, and values lost and forgotten. Preparing for this struggle for survival, the bride and groom are each set up. Each has been led to believe that their family’s patterns are all ‘normal,’ and anyone who differs is dense, naïve, or stupid because, no matter what the issue, the way their family has always done it is the ‘right’ way. For the premarital bride and groom in their twenties, as soon as they say, “I do,” these ‘right’ ways of doing things are about to collide like two three hundred and fifty pound linemen at the hiking of the ball. From “I do” forward, if not before, every decision, every action, every goal will be like the line of scrimmage. Where will the family patterns collide? In the kitchen. Here the new couple will be faced with the difficult decision of “Where do the cereal bowls go?” Likely, one family’s is high, and the others is low. Where will they go now? In the bathroom. The bathroom is a battleground unmatched in the potential conflicts. Will the toilet paper roll over the top or underneath? Will the acceptable residing position for the lid be up or down? And, of course, what about the toothpaste? Squeeze it from the middle or the end? But the skirmishes don’t stop in the rooms of the house, they are not only locational they are seasonal. The classic battles come home for the holidays. Thanksgiving. Which family will they spend the noon meal with and which family, if close enough, will have to wait until the nighttime meal, or just dessert if at all? Christmas. Whose home will they visit first, if at all? How much money will they spend on gifts for his family? for hers? Then comes for many couples an even bigger challenge – children of their own! At the wedding, many couples take two candles and light just one often extinguishing their candle as a sign of devotion. The image is Biblical. The Bible is quoted a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. What few prepare them for is the upcoming struggle, the conflict over the unanswered question: the two shall become one, but which one? Two families, two patterns, two ways of doing things, which family’s patterns will survive to play another day, in another generation, and which will be lost forever? Let the games begin.

Newton had bequeathed to Einstein a universe in which time had an absolute existence that tick-tocked along independent of objects and observers, and in which space likewise had an absolute existence. Gravity was thought to be a force that masses exerted on one another rather mysteriously across empty space. Within this framework, objects obeyed mechanical laws that had proved remarkably accurate—almost perfect—in explaining everything from the orbits of the planets, to the diffusion of gases, to the jiggling of molecules, to the propagation of sound (though not light) waves. With his special theory of relativity, Einstein had shown that space and time did not have independent existences, but instead formed a fabric of spacetime. Now, with his general version of the theory, this fabric of spacetime became not merely a container for objects and events. Instead, it had its own dynamics that were determined by, and in turn helped to determine, the motion of objects within it—just as the fabric of a trampoline will curve and ripple as a bowling ball and some billiard balls roll across it, and in turn the dynamic curving and rippling of the trampoline fabric will determine the path of the rolling balls and cause the billiard balls to move toward the bowling ball. The curving and rippling fabric of spacetime explained gravity, its equivalence to acceleration, and, Einstein asserted, the general relativity of all forms of motion.92 In the opinion of Paul Dirac, the Nobel laureate pioneer of quantum mechanics, it was “probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made.” Another of the great giants of twentieth-century physics, Max Born, called it “the greatest feat of human thinking about nature, the most amazing combination of philosophical penetration, physical intuition and mathematical skill.

Kenza’s Recipe for Ghoribas: (Makes about 50 small cookies) 2 eggs plus 1 separated egg ½ a tea glass of sugar ½ a tea glass of melted butter 3 large spoonfuls of honey 4 tea glasses of flour (Sift the flour with 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar) A pinch of salt Zest of an orange In a big mixing bowl beat together the 2 eggs plus the white of the separated egg (keep the yolk aside for later) and the sugar. Add the butter, honey and orange zest and beat some more. Then carefully mix in the sifted flour until the cookie dough comes together, soft enough to be rolled into little balls between your hands. Put the balls of dough on to a buttered tray and brush with the beaten egg yolk. Bake in the oven for 10–15 minutes. Josie’s Journal – Tuesday 29th April, 1941 Maman had organised a meeting at our house this morning for ladies who were interested in supporting the work of the Committee for Assistance of Foreign Refugees.

007: What are the CIA going to say about all this? After all, it's bare-faced poaching. Tanner: They don't own Japan. Anyway, they're not here to know. That's up to this fellow Tanaka. He'll have to fix the machinery for getting it into the Australian Embassy. That's his worry. But the whole thing's on pretty thin ice. The main problem is to make sure he doesn't go straight along to the CIA and tell 'em of your approach. If you get blown, we'll just have to get the Australians to hold the baby. They've don it before when we've been bowled out edging our way into the pacific. We're good friends with their service. First-rate bunch of chaps. And, anyway, the CIA's hands aren't as clean as all that. We've got a whole file of cases where they've crossed wires with us round the world. Often dangerously. We can throw that book at McCone if this business blows up in our faces. But part of your job is to see that it doesn't. 007: Seems to me I'm getting all balled up in high politics. Not my line of country at all.

Standing on the pavement was a big fat man whom Dixon recognized as his barber. Dixon felt a deep respect for this man because of his impressive exterior, his rumbling bass voice, and his unsurpassable stock of information about the Royal Family. At that moment two rather pretty girls stopped at a pillar-box a few yards away. The barber, his hands clasped behind his back, turned and stared at them. An unmistakable expression of furtive lust came over his face; then, like a courtly shyopwalker, he moved slowly towards the two girls. Welch now accelerated again and Dixon, a good deal shaken hurriedly switched his attention to the other side of the road, where a cricket match was being played and the bowler was just running up to bowl. The batsman, another big fat man, swiped at the ball, missed it, and was violently hit by it in the stomach. Dixon had time to see him double up and the wicket-keeper begin to run forward before a tall hedge hid the scene. Uncertain whether this pair of vignettes was designed to illustrate the swiftness of divine retribution or its tendency to mistake its target, Dixon was quite sure that he felt in some way overwhelmed...

VICTORIAN FUNERAL BISCUITS Adapted from the third edition of Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book, published in 1862. ½ c sugar ½ c salted butter, softened 1 c molasses ½ c warm water 2 tbs fresh minced ginger 2 ¼ c flour ½ tsp baking soda In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the molasses, water, and ginger, and beat until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Add flour to molasses mixture and use electric mixer to combine well. Dough will be stiff. Split dough into two balls. Knead each dough ball several times to remove any air bubbles. Form dough into two even logs, approximately 8 inches long. Wrap each log tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for several hours until firm. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice each log of dough into ¼-inch rounds and place one inch apart on baking sheets. Each dough log makes approximately 25 biscuits. If desired, use a knife or stamp to impress an image onto the biscuits. Bake 20 minutes. Let cool completely (biscuits should be crunchy). Wrap several biscuits in wax paper and secure with a black wax stamp or black string.

Castle Scones ¼ cup currants 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons well-chilled unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces 1 large egg ¼ cup whipping cream ¼ cup milk 2 teaspoons sugar (optional) butter, whipped cream, jams, curds, and marmalades Place the currants in a medium-sized bowl and pour boiling water over them just to cover. Allow to stand for 10 minutes. Drain the currants, pat them dry with paper towels, and set aside. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. With the motor running, add the butter and process until the mixture looks like cornmeal. In a separate bowl, beat the egg slightly with the cream and milk. With the motor still running, pour the egg mixture in a thin stream into the flour mixture just until the dough holds together in a ball. Fold in the currants. On a floured surface, lightly pat the dough into 2 circles, each about 7 inches in diameter. Cut each circle into 6 even pieces. Place the scones on a buttered baking sheet 2 inches apart. Sprinkle them with the optional sugar, if desired. Bake about 15 minutes, or until the scones are puffed, golden, and cooked through. Serve with butter, whipped cream, and jams. Makes 12 scones

The city had changed beyond recognition. Wrecking balls and bulldozers had leveled the old buildings to rubble. The dust of construction hung permanently over the streets. Gated mansions reached up to the northern foothills, while slums fanned out from the city’s southern limits. I feared an aged that had lost its heart, and I was terrified at the thought of so many useless hands. Our traditions were our pacifiers and we put ourselves to sleep with the lullaby of a once-great civilation and culture. Ours was the land of poetry flowers, and nightingales—and poets searching for rhymes in history’s junkyards. The lottery was our faith and greed our fortune. Our intellectuals were sniffing cocaine and delivering lectures in the back rooms of dark cafés. We bought plastic roses and decorated our lawns and courtyards with plaster swans. We saw the future in neon lights. We had pizza shops, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. We had trafric jams, skyscrapers, and air thick with noise and pollution. We had illiterate villagers who came to the capital with scraps of paper in their hands, begging for someone to show them the way to this medical clinic or that government officee. the streets of Tehran were full of Mustangs and Chevys bought at three times the price they sold for back in America, and still our oil wasn’t our own. Still our country wasn’t our own.

Picking up my spoon, I dip it into the broth, making sure to get pieces of the small, fatty meat. I close my eyes and eat my spoonful, marveling at the rich, savory flavors. It's like beef broth, only heartier, and the meat has this really interesting texture. Before I know it, I've devoured half the bowl. "You like Soup Number Five?" I look up to see Lola Simeona, the old woman from earlier, standing by my table, watching me. "Oh, yes," I say, patting my mouth with a napkin. "It's delicious! What is this meat? It's like nothing I've ever tasted. And I feel more... energetic already, sort of like I can take on anything." Like Prem. She smiles knowingly. "Yes, yes, Soup Number Five is magical." After a pause, during which her smile morphs into what I can only be described as a mischievous grin, she says, "The meat is bull testes." I stare at her for a long moment as her words filter into my brain. I set my spoon down carefully and take a sip of water. "Bull... testes?" I ask in the most neutral way I can. "Yes! It's an aphrodisiac!" She pats my shoulder and walks off to another table. I think I can hear her cackling. I look down into my bowl. I just ate a bunch of chopped-up bull balls. For a moment I wonder, in a very detached way (is this what being in medical shock feels like?), if I'm going to throw up. But then the moment passes, and I realize they're really delicious. And Soup No. 5 works. I can feel the potent mixture wending its way through my system, infusing my blood with confidence and desire. I eat another big spoonful.

MABEL’S CHOCOLATE CHIP PUDDING COOKIES Servings: 15 cookies INGREDIENTS • 2 ¼ cups (281g) all purpose flour spooned and leveled • 1 teaspoon baking soda • ½ teaspoon salt • 1 cup (2 sticks; 227g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature (vegan butter works too) • ¾ cup (150g) light brown sugar packed • ¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar • 1 (3.4-ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix • 2 large eggs room temperature • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips INSTRUCTIONS • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside. • In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. • In a separate bowl with a hand mixer, or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar on high speed until light and creamy, at least 3 minutes. Do not skip this step.  • Add the dry pudding mix, vanilla and eggs and beat on high for 2-3 minutes, until light and fluffy. • Slowly add half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and turn the mixer on low speed to start so the flour doesn't get everywhere. Turn the mixer up to high speed and mix until combined. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and repeat until dough is just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips with a rubber spatula until incorporated. • Use a large cookie scoop or ¼ cup measuring cup to drop the cookie dough balls onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until slightly golden and just set on the top. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for two minutes then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely.

Chicken Francese, or lamb chops, or plump spinach gnocchi that she'd roll out by hand and drop into boiling salt water. When her brothers came home for the holidays, she'd spend days in the kitchen, preparing airy latkes and sweet and sour brisket; roast turkey with chestnut stuffing; elaborately iced layer cakes. She'd stay in the kitchen for hours, cooking dish after dish, hoping that all the food would somehow conceal their father's absence; hoping that the meals would take the taste of grief out of their mouths. "After my father died, I think cooking saved me. It was the only thing that made me happy. Everything else felt so out of control. But if I followed a recipe, if I used the right amounts of the right ingredients and did everything I was supposed to do..." She tried to explain it- how repetitive motions of peeling and chopping felt like a meditation, the comfort of knowing that flour and yeast, oil and salt, combined in the correct proportions, would always yield a loaf of bread; the way that making a shopping list could refocus her mind, and how much she enjoyed the smells of fresh rosemary, of roasting chicken or baking cookies, the velvety feel of a ball of dough at the precise moment when it reached its proper elasticity and could be put into an oiled bowl, under a clean cloth, to rise in a warm spot in the kitchen, the same step that her mother's mother's mother would have followed to make the same kind of bread. She liked to watch popovers rising to lofty heights in the oven's heat, blooming out of their tins. She liked the sound of a hearty soup or grain-thickened stew, simmering gently on a low flame, the look of a beautifully set table, with place cards and candles and fine china. All of it pleased her.

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES 6 tablespoons chilled butter ( ¾ stick, 3 ounces) 12-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips (two cups—I used Ghirardelli’s) ½ cup firmly packed powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar) 6 egg yolks 1 Tablespoon rum, brandy, flavored brandy, or vanilla extract   Put an inch or so of water in the bottom half of a double boiler and heat it to a gentle boil. Cut the butter in chunks and place them in the top half of the double boiler. Add the chips and then the powdered sugar and set the top half over the bottom half. Put on the cover and let everything melt while you…   Beat the egg yolks in a small bowl with a whisk. Whisk until they’re thoroughly combined, but stop before they get fluffy or lighter in color.   Stir the chocolate until it’s completely melted. It will be thick, almost like fudge. Remove the top half of the double boiler and set it on a cold burner.   Stir several spoonfuls of beaten egg yolk into the chocolate mixture. When that’s incorporated, stir in several more spoonfuls. Keep adding egg yolk in small amounts, stirring constantly, until all the egg yolks have been incorporated and the chocolate mixture is smooth and glossy.   Stir in the rum, brandy, or vanilla. Put the lid back on the top of the double boiler and refrigerate the chocolate mixture for 3 hours. To Decorate Truffles: finely chopped nuts powdered (confectioner’s) sugar chocolate sprinkles shaved chocolate cocoa powder finely shredded coconut   Warning: This next step is fairly messy. If you like, wear disposable plastic food-server gloves. You can also lightly grease your hands, or spray them with Pam or other non-stick cooking spray so the chocolate won’t stick to your fingers.   Form small balls of chilled chocolate with your hands and roll them in bowls of the above ingredients.

TIO TITO’S SUBLIME LIME BAR COOKIES Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position. ½ cup finely-chopped coconut (measure after chopping—pack it down when you measure it) 1 cup cold salted butter (2 sticks, 8 ounces, ½ pound) ½ cup powdered (confectioners) sugar (no need to sift unless it’s got big lumps) 2 cups all-purpose flour (pack it down when you measure it)   4 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork) 2 cups white (granulated) sugar cup lime juice (freshly squeezed is best) cup vodka (I used Tito’s Handmade Vodka) ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ cup all-purpose flour (pack it down when you measure it) Powdered (confectioners) sugar to sprinkle on top Coconut Crust: To get your half-cup of finely-chopped coconut, you will need to put approximately ¾ cup of shredded coconut in the bowl of a food processor. (The coconut will pack down more when it’s finely-chopped so you’ll need more of the stuff out of the package to get the half-cup you need for this recipe.) Chop the shredded coconut up finely with the steel blade. Pour it out into a bowl and measure out ½ cup, packing it down when you measure it. Return the half-cup of finely chopped coconut to the food processor. (You can also do this by spreading out the shredded coconut on a cutting board and chopping it finely by hand.) Cut each stick of butter into eight pieces and arrange them in the bowl of the food processor on top of the chopped coconut. Sprinkle the powdered sugar and the flour on top of that. Zoop it all up with an on-and-off motion of the steel blade until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Prepare a 9-inch by 13-inch rectangular cake pan by spraying it with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray. Alternatively, for even easier removal, line the cake pan with heavy-duty foil and spray that with Pam. (Then all you have to do is lift the bar cookies out when they’re cool, peel off the foil, and cut them up into pieces.) Sprinkle the crust mixture into the prepared cake pan and spread it out with your fingers. Pat it down with a large spatula or with the palms of your impeccably clean hands. Hannah’s 1st Note: If your butter is a bit too soft, you may end up with a mass that balls up and clings to the food processor bowl. That’s okay. Just scoop it up and spread it out in the bottom of your prepared pan. (You can also do this in a bowl with a fork or a pie crust blender if you prefer.) Hannah’s 2nd Note: Don’t wash your food processor quite yet. You’ll need it to make the lime layer. (The same applies to your bowl and fork if you make the crust by hand.) Bake your coconut crust at 350 degrees F. for 15 minutes. While your crust is baking, prepare the lime layer. Lime Layer: Combine the eggs with the white sugar. (You can use your food processor and the steel blade to do this, or you can do it by hand in a bowl.) Add the lime juice, vodka, salt, and baking powder. Mix thoroughly. Add the flour and mix until everything is incorporated. (This mixture will be runny—it’s supposed to be.) When your crust has baked for 15 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and set it on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack. Don’t shut off the oven! Just leave it on at 350 degrees F. Pour the lime layer mixture on top of the crust you just baked. Use potholders to pick up the pan and return it to the oven. Bake your Sublime Lime Bar Cookies for an additional 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and cool your lime bars in the pan on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack. When the pan has cooled to room temperature, cover it with foil and refrigerate it until you’re ready to serve. Cut the bars into brownie-sized pieces, place them on a pretty platter, and sprinkle them lightly with powdered sugar. Yum! Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you would prefer not to use alcohol in these bar cookies, simply substitute whole milk for the vodka. This recipe works both ways and I can honestly tell you that I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like my Sublime Lime Bar Cookies!

TREASURE CHEST COOKIES (Lisa’s Aunt Nancy’s Babysitter’s Cookies) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position. The Cookie Dough: ½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces, ¼ pound) salted butter, room temperature ¾ cup powdered sugar (plus 1 and ½ cups more for rolling the cookies in and making the glaze) ¼ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons milk (that’s cup) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 and ½ cups all-purpose flour (pack it down when you measure it) The “Treasure”: Well-drained Maraschino cherries, chunks of well-drained canned pineapple, small pieces of chocolate, a walnut or pecan half, ¼ teaspoon of any fruit jam, or any small soft candy or treat that will fit inside your cookie dough balls. The Topping: 1 cup powdered (confectioners) sugar To make the cookie dough: Mix the softened butter and ¾ cup powdered sugar together in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Beat them until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the salt and mix it in. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Beat until they’re thoroughly blended. Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing well after each addition. Divide the dough into 4 equal quarters. (You don’t have to weigh it or measure it, or anything like that. It’s not that critical.) Roll each quarter into a log shape and then cut each log into 6 even pieces. (The easy way to do this is to cut it in half first and then cut each half into thirds.) Roll the pieces into balls about the size of a walnut with its shell on, or a little larger. Flatten each ball with your impeccably clean hands. Wrap the dough around a “treasure” of your choice. If you use jam, don’t use over a quarter-teaspoon as it will leak out if there’s too much jam inside the dough ball. Pat the resulting “package” into a ball shape and place it on an ungreased cookie sheet, 12 balls to a standard-size sheet. Push the dough balls down just slightly so they don’t roll off on their way to your oven. Hannah’s 1st Note: I use baking sheets with sides and line them with parchment paper when I bake these with jam. If part of the jam leaks out, the parchment paper contains it and I don’t have sticky jam on my baking sheets or in the bottom of my oven. Bake the Treasure Chest Cookies at 350° F. for approximately 18 minutes, or until the bottom edge is just beginning to brown when you raise it with a spatula. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the sheets for about 5 minutes. Place ½ cup of powdered sugar in a small bowl. Place wax paper or parchment paper under the wire racks. Roll the still-warm cookies in the powdered sugar. The sugar will stick to the warm cookies. Coat them evenly and then return them to the wire racks to cool completely. (You’ll notice that the powdered sugar will “soak” into the warm cookie balls. That’s okay. You’re going to roll them in powdered sugar again for a final coat when they’re cool.) When the cookies are completely cool, place another ½ cup powdered sugar in your bowl. Roll the cooled cookies in the powdered sugar again. Then transfer them to a cookie jar or another container and store them in a cool, dry place. Hannah’s 2nd Note: I tried putting a couple of miniature marshmallows or half of a regular-size marshmallow in the center of my cookies for the “treasure”. It didn’t work. The marshmallows in the center completely melted away. Lisa’s Note: I’m going to try my Treasure Chest Cookies with a roll of Rollo’s next time I make them. Herb just adores those chocolate covered soft caramels. He wants me to try the miniature Reese’s Pieces, too. Yield: 2 dozen delicious cookies that both kids and adults will love to eat.

Triple Ginger Cookies About three dozen cookies Ingredients 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup minced crystallized ginger 2 teaspoons baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar 1 large egg, room temperature 1/4 cup light, mild-flavored molasses 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh peeled ginger 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/3 cup granulated sugar Preparation Preheat to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk together flour, crystallized ginger, baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in medium bowl. In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Gradually add both brown sugars and beat on medium-high until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add egg, molasses, fresh ginger, ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, and blend well. Add flour mixture in thirds, beating on low speed just to blend between additions. Place 1/3 cup sugar in small bowl. Measure 1 tablespoon dough. Roll into ball between palms of hands, then roll in sugar in bowl to coat; place on baking sheet. Repeat with remaining cookie dough, spacing cookies 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart. Bake cookies until surfaces crack and cookies are firm around edges but still slightly soft in center, about 15 minutes. Cool completely still on the baking sheets. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature.

Goldfish Memory For decades people believed that the goldfish memory lasts only for 3 seconds. But over the years, this belief has been debunked multiple times with experiments and research. Goldfish are one of the most popular pet fish, and if you are a proud owner of a goldfish, you would be happy to know that your fish remembers you. Disproving the 3 seconds memory myth Studies show that your goldfish memory spans more than three months. In one of the studies, the scientists added a lever to the goldfish tank that dispensed food when pressed. The goldfish in the tank quickly learned to press the lever to get food. The goldfish started to come to the lever whenever they were hungry. Later the scientist changed the process and adjusted the lever to dispense food only at a particular time within a one-hour window. Soon the goldfish learned to return to the lever each day around that time when the lever dispensed food. This experiment proves that goldfish do have memories that span more than 3 seconds. In another study, the scientists used music to train the goldfish. Whenever they brought food for the goldfish, a particular piece of music would be playing. The goldfish learned to associate this music with food. Later, the scientists released the goldfish into the wild. After about five months, they played the same piece of music, and the goldfish returned to the same feeding place. The results of the above experiments would have been different if the goldfish has a 3-second memory. Are goldfish smart? The answer is yes they are! Besides having better than a 3-second memory, goldfish are also quite intelligent in their own right. They have shown an incredible ability to learn and process information. In many cases, your pet goldfish have been found to remember their owners' sound and to distinguish the one who feeds them. They are usually scared when they meet new people, and it is only after repeatedly seeing the person that they no longer fear them. There have also been instances where goldfish do complex activities like swimming through a maze or push a ball into a net. This proves that the goldfish have better memory and can perform far more complex tasks than we give them credit. Goldfish evolving over millions of years Scientists believe that the entire fish category has evolved over hundreds of years and have learned to remember where and how they can find food, what predators look like, how to stay safe, and basic survival instincts. Conclusion From all the research and studies that have been conducted, it is easy to deduce that when you keep your goldfish in a bowl with the same accessories for years, it will not provide a scintillating environment for the fish to thrive. The goldfish may not be the smartest species in the animal kingdom, but they do have a memory that is more than just 3 seconds. Hence, it is only fair that if you bring home a goldfish as a pet, give it the environment it needs to enjoy a healthy and stimulating life.

White Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes Don’t be a hater like Callie! While chocolate white may  not be technically chocolate, it’s still yummy. Makes 28 cupcakes Ingredients For the peppermint cupcakes: - 3 cups cake flour - 1 ¾ cups sugar - 1 tablespoon baking powder - 1 teaspoon salt - 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature cut into small cubes - 5 egg whites - 1 ¼ cup milk at room temperature - 1 tablespoon peppermint extract - 12 crushed candy canes For the White Chocolate Swirled Buttercream: - 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature - 1 cup vegetable shortening - 8 cups confectioners’ sugar - 2 tablespoons vanilla extract - ¼ cup milk - 4.4 ounces (125 grams) good quality white chocolate - Red gel paste food color For the white chocolate ganache & decoration: - 6 ounces (170 grams) white chocolate - 2 ounces (57 grams) heavy cream - 28 soft peppermint candy balls Instructions Make the cupcakes Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius) and line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Combine milk and peppermint extract. Set aside. Combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and mix on low for 2-3 minutes. Add butter a few cubes at a time and mix on low until mixture resembles coarse sand. Add egg whites and beat on medium until combined. Gradually add milk mixture and beat for 1-2 minutes until batter is smooth. Fold in crushed candy canes. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full. Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out with a few crumbs. Allow cupcakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to wire racks to finish cooling. Make the White Chocolate Buttercream Cream butter, vegetable shortening, and vanilla in bowl and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes until smooth. Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time while mixer is running. Once all the sugar is incorporated, add the milk and mix for 30 seconds. Melt white chocolate in microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring after each turn until melted. Incorporate melted chocolate into buttercream and mix until fluffy. Reserve ¼ cup buttercream and add a small amount of red color get to tint. Prepare a small piping bag with the red buttercream and snip the tip off. Prepare a large piping bag fitted with a large round tip. Streak the inside of the large piping bag with six stripes of red buttercream. Fill the rest of the bag with the White Chocolate Buttercream. Squeeze a swirled dollop of buttercream on top of each cupcake. Place cupcakes in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the ganache. Make the White Chocolate Ganache and Assemble Combine cream and white chocolate in bowl and heat on 30-second intervals, stirring after each turn, for about 1 minute. Stir until chocolate melts, allow to cool and thicken slightly for five minutes. Transfer to a squeeze bottle and drizzle ganache on top of buttercream. Garnish each cupcake with a peppermint candy.

Santé Biscuits •1/2 cup of butter, softened •1/4 cup sugar •5 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk (the original recipe calls for three, but I always add more) •1 1/2 cups flour •1 tsp baking powder •3/4 cup chocolate chips •1/2 tsp vanilla Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a baking tray with wax paper. Cream together butter, sugar and condensed milk until light and fluffy. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then sift them into the creamed mixture, mixing until combined. Add the chocolate chips. Roll the mixture into balls, place them on the baking tray and then flatten them with a fork. Bake for 15 mins or until golden at the edges but still soft. Leave on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking tray to cool (even though they are best eaten warm).

surface. Beat on low speed for 5–10 minutes. 6. Place the dough in a medium-sized buttered bowl, turning the dough through the butter, allowing the butter to be thoroughly distributed onto the dough. Cover the bowl with a tea towel or plastic wrap. Place the bowl in a warm area and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour. 7. Punch the dough down, then divide it into balls of about 2–3 tablespoons each. Place the balls of dough in

We just started looking at houses and everything came together—” “Holy shit.” I turn away, dizzy. My arms are heavy and numb, but my heart is clattering around like a bowling ball on a roller coaster. “Do you already own this house?” She doesn’t reply. I spin back. “Libby, did you buy a house without even telling me?

Part of what made Albert Einstein so talented was his imagination and ability to distill complexity into a simple scene in his head. When he was sixteen he started imagining what it would be like to ride on a beam of light, holding on to the sides like a flying carpet and thinking through how it would travel and bend. Soon after, he began imagining what your body would feel like if you were in an enclosed elevator riding through space. He contemplated gravity by imagining bowling balls and billiard balls competing for space on a trampoline surface. He could process a textbook of information with the effort of a daydream.

INGREDIENTS 2½ cups stone ground whole wheat flour 1½ cups white flour (some bakers use whole wheat again) ½ cup rolled oats 1½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1¾ cups buttermilk 2 Tablespoons molasses or treacle (optional, but Siobhán uses it) Siobhán even splashes in some Guinness for luck. In a large bowl, combine all flour, oats, salt, and baking soda. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and molasses. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the buttermilk mixture. (Add a drop of Guinness for good luck.) Stir with a fork or spatula until combined. Cover your hands with flour and knead the dough into a ball. Place the dough ball on a lined baking sheet and press it flat, a few inches thick. With a knife, make a cross on top of the loaf. Bake at 450°F for 15 minutes. Then reduce to 400°F and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes, until the bottom of the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Note: I once asked an Irish woman for her brown bread recipe. She let me know that recipes are handed down, not out. So I pushed my luck and asked how hers was so soft. She relented on this and suggested longer baking times at lower heat, that is, 180 degrees for one hour.

Instructions 1. In a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, salt, butter, and vegetable shortening until the mixture looks golden and resembles coarse cornmeal. 2. Pour the flour mixture into a large bowl. Add the ice water one tablespoon at a time, lightly fluffing the mixture with your fingers. Add ice water to the mixture until the dough just begins to come together. (I always mix the water by hand so I have more control.) If you are not sure, try squeezing a little of the dough together in your hand. If it clumps, you are done. 3. Gather the dough into a ball, divide it into two pieces, then flatten the pieces into discs. Wrap the discs in plastic and put them in the refrigerator to rest for at least 1 hour. 4. Roll out the two pieces of pie dough. There are two main tricks to rolling out pie dough: One is to not use too much flour—you can always add a bit more if the dough is sticking to the table, but you can’t take it away. The other is to never roll the dough out using a back-and-forth motion. Always work from the center and roll out. That will keep you from working the gluten too much. Use one dough disc to line a 9" deep-dish pie pan. Place the second rolled-out dough on a cookie sheet. Place both discs back in the refrigerator to rest.

afraid that Ben will go into shock when he realizes she has a zillion and one bad habits; it won’t take long before he notices that she never rinses out her cereal bowls or bothers to make the bed. Sooner or later he’ll discover that the ice cream is always disappearing from the freezer because Gillian is feeding it to Buddy as a special treat. He’ll see that Gillian’s sweaters often are crumpled into balls of wool and chenille on the floor of a closet or under the bed. And if Ben grows disgusted, if he should decide to kick her out, say good-bye, rethink his options, well, then let him. There’s no marriage license

Gutter Ball You don’t think we’re horrible parents? You take a kid bowling now, they have these rails that come up out of the gutters. So when the stupid kid rolls the ball, it has to hit a pin. Has to. We eliminated the gutter ball. Nice preparation for life. I think the gutter ball is really the only life lesson a kid really needs to have. You either do the thing you’re doing right, or there’s a huge ka-klunk sound

Bowling balls of death Rolling toward my enemies I’ll trade you problems

Often times, when in the throes of extraordinary pain, we want to give up on Life. We believe we cannot go on. Be wary of this downward mood spiral. In Life, as in cricket, it’s never over until it is over, until the last ball is bowled! And when it is over, when your time is up, you wouldn’t obviously be around to know what happened! So, why worry, why grieve and why be anxious? Live free. Live without worry or fear. Live in prayer and surrender. Remember: you are in Life’s safe hands! So, no matter what, you will be looked after, cared for and provided for.

Dad went back to the front, taking Jovie with him, and Kye cornered me. Backing me up until my ass bumped into one of the workshop tables. “You have no sense of personal space, do you?” Not that I minded. Especially when he trapped me there, planting soft kisses against my throat and shoulder. “We could try for a workshop-table-baby.” His laughter rumbled in his chest, making my toes curl. “How about it?” It took an extreme amount of willpower to not let his kisses distract me. “First, we’re not trying for any kind of baby while Dad’s here.” He grunted, twisting the ends of my hair around his fingers. “We could come back after hours.” My brows hiked into my hairline. “Why would we come all the way back into town when we have a perfectly comfortable bed. And kitchen. And living room. And the armchair that we still have yet to christen.” We shared a wicked smirk before I gave him a quick, chaste kiss and whispered, “I don’t want a chisel poking my ass while you fuck me. Not sexy.” “Armchair baby it is,” he sighed, like he was accepting the next best option. “Should I at least buy you a drink first? Soften you up a bit?” “Hmmm,” I hummed, reaching up to tap his chin with my index finger. “Well, if you insist. How about hot cocoa?” He shook his head, laughter dancing in his eyes, and I had to keep myself from getting swept away by his gaze. “I know just the place.” Kye donned his coat and slid his hand into mine. We made our way to The Bowl, ordered our drinks, and met at the windows where, almost exactly one year ago, I’d dabbed whipped cream off his nose. I reached up now to do the same after he took his first sip, because he still didn’t have the skills to drink The Bowl’s monstrosity properly. “I’m starting to think you do it on purpose,” I accused, balling up the napkin. I’d never openly admit it was one of my favorite things. “Holly?” “Yes?” “Shut up and forking kiss me.” And I did. I forking kissed the big, Krampus-looking, kindhearted, funny, foul-mouthed, available all-months-of-the-year alien. It just happened to be another one of my favorite things.

sleeping some more, playing, sneezing and snorting, barking at other dogs, and going for walks. I haven’t seen an empty food bowl yet, and I am free to roam the house. I can't remember the last time I was locked up in my crate! Instead, my family and I play with my angry bird, my owl, tennis balls, and any other toy I can find. When I am super excited,

Ingredients 5 balls stem ginger, chopped 45g fresh ginger, grated 5 pitted and chopped soft prunes 2 tsp dark marmalade 200g self-raising flour 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 2 tbsp dried ginger 2 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp mace ½ tsp salt 115g butter or cooking margarine 115g dark brown sugar 115g black treacle 115g golden syrup 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 125ml milk Butter a deep 20cm square cake tin and line with baking paper. Pre-heat the oven at 180oc (165oc fan oven). Put the stem and fresh ginger in a small blender with the marmalade and prunes and blend until smooth. If it becomes too stiff, use a little of the milk to loosen. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, dried ginger, cinnamon, mace and salt in a large bowl. Melt the butter, sugar, treacle and golden syrup in a small saucepan. When smooth, leave to cool. Mix the ginger and marmalade mixture into the dried ingredients, add the cooled butter mixture, the beaten eggs and milk. Stir until smooth. Pour into the cake tin and cook on the middle shelf for 50 mins to 1 hour. Leave in the tin to cool. Don’t worry if it’s sunken slightly in the middle, it’s all the better for it. Best eaten 24 hours after cooking and will keep for at least a week in an airtight tin. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing maybe a solo task, but writing and getting a book published is a team effort, and I can’t possibly go without thanking them for their help in bringing this book to life.

EXTRA CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES INGREDIENTS - 3 cups all-purpose flour - 1/2 teaspoon salt - 3/4 cup brown sugar - 1/2 cup granulated sugar - 1 teaspoon baking soda - 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch - 3/4 cup unsalted butter (melted) - 1 large egg - 1 large egg yolk - 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (or 2) - 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips - dark chocolate - 1 cup - milk chocolate chips - 1/2 cup - white chocolate chips INSTRUCTIONS 1. Mix flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt in a bowl. Set aside. 2. Mix melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together in another bowl. Add egg and then egg yolk. Pour the mixed ingredients in with the dry ingredients and stir. Add in the chocolate chips (dark and milk), then chill for 2-3 hours or overnight. 3. Once ready, take out and allow to chill to room temperature. 4. Preheat oven to 325F 5. Separate the dough and roll into balls. Press a few chocolate chips (the white chocolate ones) on the top. 6. Bake for 12-14 minutes.

Although Schreiner had been the second-round draft pick of the Detroit Lions, Stuhldreher dissuaded him from even considering it. Pro ball was good for a little quick money, maybe, but players hung on too long and after that could not adjust to other fields. He spoke from experience, having played professionally for three years, watching men unable to cope with the inevitable diminishment of their physical skills, their bodies breaking down from too many hits, too much viciousness, and too much disregard for injuries. “They are not a credit to anyone,” he wrote, the one thing they were good at being of no use in the real world. He bluntly told Schreiner that he would never top the laurels he had already received in college football, so there was no point in going pro

It’s impossible to un-know a secret. Once you know it, you own it. It can’t be returned like a borrowed book. Or burned like a love letter. The click of a mouse won’t delete it from the conscious mind. It’ll stick to the walls of your memory like dried oatmeal to a dish. The secrets you wish you never knew become a burden to lug. A bowling ball without holes.

Here is what I learn about walking. Walking, like running, is about finding a pace. Stride out too quickly and you soon tire and become disheartened. Stroll too slowly and the journey can sit heavy in the bowl of your stomach. It is not passing across a landscape. Instead, it is feeling the landscape pass under you, as if the pushing of your feet into the ground turns the Earth further away from you, like balancing on a giant ball. You do not walk with your feet. You walk with your boots. Bad boots make the walking harder. When you walk, you notice the details. You notice the colours and shapes and precise movements of everything around you, from blades of grass to birds to creatures scurrying through the undergrowth. It is a way of becoming intimate with the landscape. Walking on flat roads is too easy. It lets you think too much. Walking over uneven rocky ground is a way to escape from the mind. Wet shoes weigh you down. Walking on a full stomach is like a sickness. Walking on an empty stomach is worse. Footsteps do not make a noise at the point where your boots hit the tarmac. They also sound in your head. They echo like an organ note in a cathedral. Even when your body sweats, the ends of your fingers are still cold. Feet can be hot and cold at the same time.

The caterer would like to use your sideboard buffet for the skull platters, raven plates, and broomstick-style forks. The florist will provide a bouquet of black roses. The cauldron punch and batwing cups will go on the dining room table." "Menu?" Amelia requested. "We'd discussed finger food last week. What did you finally decide?" Grace ticked off the items. "All the food is easy to eat while standing," she assured Amelia. "Chicken-witch fingers, miniature goblin burgers, chocolate crescent witch hats, ghost sugar cookies, pumpkin Bundt cake, sliced caramel apples, small popcorn balls, and a big bowl of candy corn.

Lola Flor pointed to the suman, saying, "Sweet sticky rice cooked in coconut milk and steamed in banana leaves. The banana leaves give the rice its distinctive flavor. They're garnished with latik. Caramelized coconut curds," she added at Derek's confused look. "In the bowl is ginataang bilo-bilo. Chewy rice balls, tapioca pearls, jackfruit, purple yam, and saba banana cooked in sweet coconut milk. The best thing to eat on a cold day like this.

million-dollar smile. The earnest, all-American niceness of the guy. Not to mention the pure, high, spiraling arc of the thrown football as it zeros in, laser-like, on the expected position of the wide receiver. Never mind that said receiver is flat-out running for his life, dancing, dodging, leaping and spinning in a million directions just inches ahead of several thundering tons of rival linebackers. And never mind that the architect of that exquisite spiral was himself beset, nanoseconds earlier, with similar masses of murderous muscle bearing down on him as he threw. The ball hammers down precisely into the receiver’s arms as he sails across the line, and the fans go wild. TOUCHDOWN! Who could not love Tom Brady? The accomplishments, honors, and accolades go on and on: youngest quarterback ever to win three Super Bowls. Only quarterback ever to win NFL MVP by unanimous vote. As of 2013 he had been twice Super Bowl MVP, twice NFL MVP, nine times invited to the Pro Bowl, twice on the AP All-Pro First Team, five times an AFC Champion, and twice leader of the NFL in passing yards. He had also been (at least once, and in some cases multiple times) Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, Sporting News Sportsman of the year, AP Male Athlete of the Year, NFL Offensive Player of the Year, AFC Offensive Player of the Year, AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year, PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year, and the New England Patriots’ all-time leader in passing touchdowns, passing yards, pass completion, pass attempts, and career wins. But Tom Brady didn’t get to be Tom Brady overnight. And he didn’t get there alone.

And with a movement like a tennis serve, she heaved another enormous crystal sphere from her bag, waved her wand through the air, and caused the ball to speed across the hall and smash through a window. At the same moment, the heavy wooden front doors burst open, and more of the gigantic spiders forced their way into the entrance hall. Screams of terror rent the air: The fighters scattered, Death Eaters and Hogwartians alike, and red and green jets of light flew into the midst of the oncoming monsters, which shuddered and reared, more terrifying than ever. “How do we get out?” yelled Ron over all the screaming, but before either Harry or Hermione could answer they were bowled aside: Hagrid had come thundering down the stairs, brandishing his flowery pink umbrella. “Don’t hurt ’em, don’t hurt ’em!” he yelled. “HAGRID, NO!” Harry forgot everything else: He sprinted out from under the Cloak, running bent double to avoid the curses illuminating the whole hall. “HAGRID, COME BACK!” But he was not even halfway to Hagrid when he saw it happen: Hagrid vanished amongst the spiders, and with a great scurrying, a foul swarming movement, they retreated under the onslaught of spells, Hagrid buried in their midst. “HAGRID!

You need rubber-soled shoes,” Michael said. You also need a jock strap. The testicles in my boxer shorts were whapping against the Recaro seat like little bowling balls being dropped out fourth-story windows.

It eventually becomes another conversation with W.V. Raman. I tell him what I honestly feel. Bowlers are used as blue-collar workers by batters as they wish. Why is that a bowler apologizes to a batter in the nets if he bowls a bad ball and not the batter if he plays a bad shot?

The menu was full of foods that felt like home to me, but that also had a flair of originality. Brisket and matzo balls in a hearty bowl of ramen. Lox bowls with nori and crispy rice. Savory potato kugel and boureka pastries with hummus and fried artichokes with kibbeh. Knishes with kimchi and potato filling and a gochujang aioli. "This menu is so... Jewish." "So Jewish," Seth agreed. "And make sure you're saving room for dessert. The rugelach is unreal, and the rainbow cookies are---" he looked around, then lowered his voice--- "better than my mom's." One of the things I actually missed about living in New York was seeing all the fun twists people put on Jewish and Israeli food at restaurants and in delis. Nobody was doing that in Vermont. Maybe you could do that in Vermont, something whispered in my head. I was used to just pushing that voice away, but, for once, I let myself pause and consider it. Would it be that crazy to sell babka at my café? I bet people would love a thick, tender slice of the sweet bread braided with chocolate or cinnamon sugar or even something savory with their coffee. I could experiment with fun fillings, have a daily special. Or I could rotate shakshuka or sabich sandwiches on the brunch specials menu, since they both involved eggs. My regulars might see eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce and pitas stuffed with fried eggplant, eggs, and all the salad fixings as breaths of fresh air.

Snowman’s Balls” and another dessert named “Barbecued Spiced Bananas.” The first required two cups of ground graham crackers, one cup of powdered sugar, two tablespoons cocoa, one cup of chopped nuts, a quarter cup coconut syrup, a quarter cup brandy, and shredded coconut. You stuck it all in a bowl except for the coconut, mixed it, and rolled it in the coconut shreds.

Cutting off he head just makes a dangerous bowling ball with teeth. 

Pony Cakes 1 cup rolled oats 1 cup flour 1 tsp salt 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp corn oil ¼ cup molasses 1 cup shredded carrots 1 cup diced apple   1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C).* 2. Mix the oats, flour, salt, sugar, oil, and molasses in a bowl. 3. Stir in the carrots and apple. 4. Lightly flour your hands to keep the batter from sticking to them. Then form balls of batter no bigger than a golf ball. 5. Grease a cookie sheet (rub it with butter or margarine or spritz it with a spray-on cooking oil). 6. Place the balls of batter on the cookie sheet. 7. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the cookies turn gold. 8. Let cool. 9. Serve to your favorite horse.   *

Online bowling ball for sale Here at Bowling Liquidation, we scour the bowling industry to find the best deals on the latest closeout products. Online Selling Bowling shoes,Dexter shoes.

The scents of beer, nachos, and bowling ball wax meld into this one smell that, if it were a perfume, would be called Eau de Gutterball.

I dare you to…” He pauses, and I want him to say it. I want him to want a kiss, because I realize I’d do it so fast it’d make his head spin. “I dare you to do your happy dance,” he says instead. “Happy dance?” “Come on, everyone has a happy dance.” “But… I have to be extremely happy to do a happy dance. It’s not something I can just, you know, jump into.” “How about I give you some inspiration.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses a few buttons. A song with an upbeat keyboard begins, and Logan stands up. The happy lyrics say something about a birdhouse and a bee. He waves his hand at me to follow. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he looks at me expectantly. I stand up to face him and try to sway a little. He shakes his head as he turns the volume up. “I just can’t, I’m not happy enough.” “Pretend like the Natchitoches Central Chiefs just won the Super Bowl.” He bounces a little more enthusiastically. “That’s good, I guess.” My sway becomes a little more pronounced. A smile takes hold, not because of the thought of the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl, but because Logan is such an awkward dancer. He’s gone from bouncing to alternating snaps of his fingers as he bobs his head. Plus, he’s a little off rhythm. “There’s a Tangled marathon on in two minutes!” He has to yell over the music now. “That’s better.” I start nodding my head to the beat. “It’s Christmas! You just got your Hogwarts acceptance letter, a copy ofAction Comics #1, and a brand new car that runs on water!” “Hell yeah!” I scream and let go.

Chewy Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies.39 2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch 3/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, melted 3/4 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed 1/2 cup granulated sugar40 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk (preferably at room temperature) 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 cup chocolate chips 1/2 cup M&Ms for tops of cookies Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside. Toss together flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl. Set aside. In a medium size bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the egg yolk. Finally, whisk in the vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft, yet thick. Fold41 in the chocolate chips. They may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to have them evenly dispersed among the dough. Cover the dough and chill for 2 hours, or up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory.42 Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow to slightly soften at room temperature for 10 minutes. Roll the dough into balls, about 3 tablespoons of dough each and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets, or use a cookie scooper. Bake the cookies for 11-14 minutes. They will look very soft and underbaked. They will continue to bake on the cookie sheet. Allow cooling on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack43 to cool completely.

I wouldn't trust the guy alone with my bowling ball, that's what a horndog he is.

In the employee bathroom of the A-Ki Station Happy Snak, Gaia Jones brushed her teeth and pondered a mysterious odor. She took a deep gulp of recirculated air, tasted it and coughed. It wasn’t good. The humidifier was turned up too high. And what was that chemical smell? She gagged on the acrid tang. At first, Gaia assumed the smell emanated from her toothpaste. Enhanced with arcane East Indian herbs and state-of-the-art calcium bonders, the toothpaste claimed to harness the powers of magic and science to dramatically increase the longevity of space-faring teeth. The toothpaste label depicted the god Shiva holding a red rocket with the word A-Ki stenciled on its side. A-Ki Station looked nothing like a rocket. It hung, like a massive bowling ball, an interloper between the moons of Mars. The human sector looked tiny; just a circle of boxy towers adhered to a huge inscrutable orb. On Earth, humans were at the top of the intellectual pyramid. Out here humanity clung, wart-like, to the outside of the alien spaceship the size of a small moon.

In a frenetic whirlwind we chop and dice and mince, turning anything we can think of into a possible pizza topping, and packing them all in small hotel pans in the rolling coolers we use for field shoots. When the dough has risen, I roll out fifty twelve-inch rounds, separating each with sheets of parchment, and stacking them in sheet pans, a rotini with a creamy sauce with ham and peas, and a simple rigatoni with vegetables in a light tomato sauce. Patrick discovers a big bowl of leftover risotto from Friday's testing, and heats up the deep fryer, yelling at me to set up a breeding station so he can do some arancini. While he is frying the little rice balls, I grab a huge prep bowl and fill it with romaine, shaved Parmesan, croutons and crispy capers, and I mix together a quick peppery pseudo-Caesar-style dressing.

Wait.” Vic put a hand to his ear, as though straining to hear. He was a small man except for the enormous bowling-ball gut. His face might be called “ferretlike,” if the ferret was really ugly. “What?

Ten months after Jamie’s death, the 2006 football season began. The Colts played peerless football, winning their first nine games, and finishing the year 12–4. They won their first play-off game, and then beat the Baltimore Ravens for the divisional title. At that point, they were one step away from the Super Bowl, playing for the conference championship—the game that Dungy had lost eight times before. The matchup occurred on January 21, 2007, against the New England Patriots, the same team that had snuffed out the Colts’ Super Bowl aspirations twice. The Colts started the game strong, but before the first half ended, they began falling apart. Players were afraid of making mistakes or so eager to get past the final Super Bowl hurdle that they lost track of where they were supposed to be focusing. They stopped relying on their habits and started thinking too much. Sloppy tackling led to turnovers. One of Peyton Manning’s passes was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Their opponents, the Patriots, pulled ahead 21 to 3. No team in the history of the NFL had ever overcome so big a deficit in a conference championship. Dungy’s team, once again, was going to lose.3.36 At halftime, the team filed into the locker room, and Dungy asked everyone to gather around. The noise from the stadium filtered through the closed doors, but inside everyone was quiet. Dungy looked at his players. They had to believe, he said. “We faced this same situation—against this same team—in 2003,” Dungy told them. In that game, they had come within one yard of winning. One yard. “Get your sword ready because this time we’re going to win. This is our game. It’s our time.”3.37 The Colts came out in the second half and started playing as they had in every preceding game. They stayed focused on their cues and habits. They carefully executed the plays they had spent the past five years practicing until they had become automatic. Their offense, on the opening drive, ground out seventy-six yards over fourteen plays and scored a touchdown. Then, three minutes after taking the next possession, they scored again. As the fourth quarter wound down, the teams traded points. Dungy’s Colts tied the game, but never managed to pull ahead. With 3:49 left in the game, the Patriots scored, putting Dungy’s players at a three-point disadvantage, 34 to 31. The Colts got the ball and began driving down the field. They moved seventy yards in nineteen seconds, and crossed into the end zone. For the first time, the Colts had the lead, 38 to 34. There were now sixty seconds left on the clock. If Dungy’s team could stop the Patriots from scoring a touchdown, the Colts would win. Sixty seconds is an eternity in football.

The Patriots’ quarterback, Tom Brady, had scored touchdowns in far less time. Sure enough, within seconds of the start of play, Brady moved his team halfway down the field. With seventeen seconds remaining, the Patriots were within striking distance, poised for a final big play that would hand Dungy another defeat and crush, yet again, his team’s Super Bowl dreams. As the Patriots approached the line of scrimmage, the Colts’ defense went into their stances. Marlin Jackson, a Colts cornerback, stood ten yards back from the line. He looked at his cues: the width of the gaps between the Patriot linemen and the depth of the running back’s stance. Both told him this was going to be a passing play. Tom Brady, the Patriots’ quarterback, took the snap and dropped back to pass. Jackson was already moving. Brady cocked his arm and heaved the ball. His intended target was a Patriot receiver twenty-two yards away, wide open, near the middle of the field. If the receiver caught the ball, it was likely he could make it close to the end zone or score a touchdown. The football flew through the air. Jackson, the Colts cornerback, was already running at an angle, following his habits. He rushed past the receiver’s right shoulder, cutting in front of him just as the ball arrived. Jackson plucked the ball out of the air for an interception, ran a few more steps and then slid to the ground, hugging the ball to his chest. The whole play had taken less than five seconds. The game was over. Dungy and the Colts had won. Two weeks later, they won the Super Bowl. There are dozens of reasons that might explain why the Colts finally became champions that year. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe it was just their time. But Dungy’s players say it’s because they believed, and because that belief made everything they had learned—all the routines they had practiced until they became automatic—stick, even at the most stressful moments. “We’re proud to have won this championship for our leader, Coach Dungy,” Peyton Manning told the crowd afterward, cradling the Lombardi Trophy. Dungy turned to his wife. “We did it,” he said.

Calling the Indian heavyset was being politically correct. He was rotund, with slabs and slabs of skin and a belly like he’d swallowed a bowling ball. His T-shirt couldn’t quite reach his waist and hung out almost like a skirt. His neck fat flowed directly into a smoothly shaved head, so that it looked like one trapezoidal entity. He had a small mustache, wire-rimmed glasses, and a smile that one might mistake for gentle. “Welcome,

For the cake: 2¾ cup flour 2½ tsp baking powder 2 cups granulated sugar 1 three-ounce package of strawberry Jell-O 1 cup butter, softened 4 eggs 1 cup milk 2 tsp vanilla ½ cup strawberries, pureed Preheat oven to 350º. In a medium bowl, mix flour and baking powder together. In a large bowl, mix sugar, Jell-O, and butter with a handheld mixer. Add eggs one at a time, mixing as you do. Add the flour and baking powder into the sugar mixture and beat as you add in the milk. Finally, stir in vanilla and pureed strawberries. Pour into 9x13 greased pan and bake for 40–50 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. For the frosting: ½ cup butter, softened 1 eight-ounce pack of cream cheese 4 cups powdered sugar 2 tsp vanilla Mix all the ingredients together with handheld mixer. For the cake pops: Follow the instructions for making basic Pops from a Box, but use your crumbled strawberry cake and 1½ cups of your cream cheese frosting instead. Chill your cake balls. Choose a fun color or flavor for your candy melt coating (white chocolate candy melts are yummy with this!). Prepare your coating using about ¼ pound of candy melts at a time. Then dip cake pops and decorate.

Joe had long resented how American culture had taught him to want. There were so many things pictured in ads, displayed in store windows: stereo TVs, personality dolls, electronic board games, inboard-outboard motors, personalized bowling balls, graphite baitcasting rods. You were taught to want it all.

What John Ayers was doing seemed routine. But to the few who knew, and watched, it was a thing of beauty. The ball is snapped and John Ayers sees Taylor coming, and slides quickly back one step and to his left. And as he slides, he steps to meet his future. He’s stepping into 1985, when the turf will be fast and he won’t be able to deal with Lawrence Taylor…. Another quick step, back and left, and it’s 1986, and he’s injured and on the sidelines when the Giants send Joe Montana to the hospital and the 49ers home on the way to their own Super Bowl victory…. A third quick step and he crouches like one power forward denying another access to the hoop. But now it’s 1987 and Coach Bill Walsh is advising John Ayers to retire. Ayers ignores the advice and then learns that Walsh won’t invite him back to training camp…. He takes his final quick step back and left and times his blow, to stop dead in his tracks the most terrifying force ever launched at an NFL quarterback. “I don’t think I’ve ever played against a football player who had more drive and intensity to get to the quarterback,” John Ayers will say, after it’s all over, and he’s been given the game ball by his teammates. “It was almost like he was possessed.”…But now it’s 1995, and John Ayers has just died of cancer, at forty-two, and left behind a wife and two children. Joe Montana charters a plane to fly a dozen teammates to Amarillo, Texas, to serve as pall-bearers. At the funeral of John Ayers the letter of tribute from Bill Walsh is read aloud.

His chessboard was laid out, and I was about to throw a bowling ball through it. Always trust in crazy.

Instructions: Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine first four ingredients and mix well In separate bowl combine flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda. Then mix into creamed mixture. Blend well to avoid flour clumps! Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Combine the 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Roll each dough ball in the sugar mixture and place on a cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake approximately 10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet immediately and allow to cool. ENJOY warm or allow to cool. Serve with cold milk or hot beverage of your choice. These keep best in the refrigerator if they last more than a few minutes!!

A little farther on, in the old playing-field, there were the wickets, and the bats, and the jumping poles, and four or five boys, in their shirt sleeves and their straw hats, enjoying their half-holiday, as we had done before them. So life goes on; when one is bowled out, another is ready to step into his shoes, and, no matter how many the ball of death may knock over, the cricket of life is kept up the same, and players are never wanting!

The pastry kitchen is colder than I had imagined but smells delicious, as sweet and crisp as the bite of an apple. The walls are covered in white tiles, and almost everything is made of stainless steel. There are quite a few Chinese chefs in the kitchen, busy at work. They don't look rushed at all, carefully executing their tasks. One chef is releasing praline balls from their molds and then dipping them in a bowl of melted chocolate. It looks like a silken soup, and my mouth waters. He drops each ball in with a large fork and slowly stirs it around. When it comes up again, it has the satin sheen of the warm chocolate. He rolls it, the fork providing a cradle against a marble bench top until it is cool. The fork leaves no crease or mark on the finished product, a perfect sphere. There is such slow art to it; I feel hypnotized.

She couldn't understand why her sister derived no fascination from exploring the tiny living worlds all around them- worlds whose myriad secrets lay ripe for the taking: the flying balls of blood trapped in the bowl; the eyes of the pine floorboards laced with honey; worms picked by her father's hand and impaled on hooks to teach the children a ritual from the days when the river still carried fish. Dana found such things tedious or repulsive, but to Sarat they were the veins and arteries through which life's magic flowed.

Walt flew into the state by private jet many times in the early 1960s. The trips to scout land were kept secret to avoid the inevitable escalation in land prices were the overall plan to become known. A clandestine operation, using phony company names, moved to acquire the land. But Orlando was not the first choice. At one point, Disney found a huge tract of gorgeous land in Florida's panhandle, along the Gulf coast. The Saint Joe Paper Company, a large timber and paper milling company founded in the 1930s by a du Pont air, owned it. When Disney himself approached the company's patrician chairman, Edward Balll, about buying the land, Ball sniffed, A condition operation, using phony company names, move to acquired the land. But Orlando was not the first choice. At one point, Disney found a huge tract of Korgis land in Florida Panhandle, I'm on the golf coast. The Saint Joe paper company, a large timber and paper milling Company found it in the 1930s by a Dupont air, owned it. When do you see himself approach the companies patrician chairman, Edward bowl, about buying the land, Ball sniffed, "We don't deal with carnival people.

That day, getting through my world was like trying to swim in a pool of warm mayonnaise while carrying two bowling balls.

Most bowlers want to control the ball. That effort creates the tension that makes their swings more erratic.

A brick could be slid on a wood floor, like a rolling bowling ball, in an attempt to fill the seconds between swallows of beer.


I don’t like exclamation marks as a rule, but this one’s unavoidable. Playing against Neil Harvey! I’d read Arthur Mailey’s poignant essay about playing against his hero, Vic Trumper. If I’d earlier found Mailey’s near-hysterical countdown a bit over the top, I didn’t think so now. So, God, please don’t let it rain. "I’ll keep it brief. Harvey back-cut a ball, which I chased. Picking it up near the pickets, I gazed at it. Gosh, this ball had just been stroked by Neil Harvey! Our wicket-keeper was screaming, 'Come on, Frithy! Throw the bloody thing in!' I did, shamefaced at the silly delay. Then our off-spinner annoyingly dismissed Neil for 10. "On the second Saturday I got in. ABC Radio were experimenting with live broadcasts from grade matches. My old scrapbook shows that I scored 29 in 100 minutes, a dreary effort that may well have been solely responsible for the abandonment of the commentary idea. What must Neil Harvey have thought? What really matters, though, is how my precious innings ended. Harvey bowled a curving off spinner outside leg. I tried to glance it, but that ball was loaded. It swerved, what, two feet? Well, two or three inches anyway. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I left that field slightly elated.

WATERMELON COOKIES Preheat oven to 325 degrees F., rack in the middle position. 1 package (.16-ounce) watermelon (or any other flavor) Kool-Aid powder (Don’t get the kind with sugar or sugar substitute added.) 1 and ⅔ cup white (granulated) sugar 1 and ½ cups softened butter (2 and ½ sticks, 10 ounces) 2 large eggs, beaten (just whip them up in a glass with a fork) ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 3 cups all-purpose flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) ½ cup white (granulated) sugar in a bowl Hannah’s 1st Note: When Brandi makes these cookies, she rolls them out on a floured board and uses cookie cutters. Rolled cookies take more time than other types of cookies, so Lisa and I modified Brandi’s recipe for use at The Cookie Jar. Mix the watermelon Kool-Aid with the granulated sugar. Add the softened butter and mix until it’s nice and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix well. Mix in the salt and the baking soda. Make sure they’re well incorporated. Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition. Spray cookie sheets with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray. You can also use parchment paper if you prefer. Roll dough balls one inch in diameter with your hands. (We use a 2-teaspoon cookie scooper at The Cookie Jar.) Roll the cookie balls in the bowl of white sugar and place them on the cookie sheet, 12 to a standard-size sheet. Bake the Watermelon Cookies at 325 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes (mine took 11 minutes) or until they’re just beginning to turn golden around the edges. Don’t overbake. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for no more than a minute, and then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely. Yield: Approximately 6 dozen pretty and unusual cookies that kids will adore, especially if you tell them that they’re made with Kool-Aid. Hannah’s 2nd Note: Brandi’s mother baked these cookies to send to school on birthdays. She

The air was motionless, carved, a block of warm copper fitting neatly around the earth, molded while soft to fit every house and every human being on the earth, and now hardened forever so that no man could move and no air ever came through. The earth rumbled down its alley like a golden bowling ball, shining.

Mr. Nobley walked briskly to her side, offering a cup from the punch bowl, asking her if she required anything else while she drank. “Is it too hot in here for you? I will have them open the windows. Or I could fetch you a fan.” “No, I’m fine, sir.” He was impatient for a servant to come take her empty cup and glared at anyone who interrupted their path back to the dance floor. “You’re not enjoying the ball?” she asked. “I assure you, I am taking an inordinate amount of pleasure from this ball, but none of it has to do with any of these bumblers.” “I think you just complimented me,” said Jane. “You should take better care next time.” The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane’s arm and whisper, “Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you.” He took a breath. “There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again.” Jane’s mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, “But…but surely you wouldn’t banish all the food.” He considered, then nodded once. “Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic.

Simply go to Google and click on the Google image tab. Once there, choose various words at random. We might put in “squid” and then look at all the pictures the word squid generates. Print out one or two images generated by the word squid. Then pick another word at random such as “architect.” Pick two images under the architect category and print them out as well. After you go through a series of ten random words and have printed pictures, these are used as a Random Stimulation exercise. Here’s how it would work in a group setting. We would say to the group, “We are currently trying to figure out a way of increasing sales and revenue” (from the bowling ball company example). Now we ask the group to set that problem aside and look at a stack of random images. When looking at the images the group members are only to say what those images remind them of, as a facilitator writes down the phrases and words they mention.

The New Dog I. “I’m intensely afraid of almost everything. Grocery bags, potted poinsettias, bunches of uprooted weeds wilting on a hot sidewalk, clothes hangers, deflated rubber balls, being looked in the eye, crutches, an overcoat tossed across the back of a chair (everybody knows empty overcoats house ghosts), children, doorways, music, human hands and the newspaper rustling as my owner, in striped pajamas, drinks coffee and turns its pages. He wants to find out where there’ll be war in the mid-east this week. Afraid even of eating, if someone burps or clinks a glass with a fork, or if my owner turns the kitchen faucet on to wash his hands during my meal I go rigid with fear, my legs buckle, then I slink from the room. I pee copiously if my food bowl is placed on the floor before the other dogs’. I have to be served last or the natural order of things - in which every moment I am about to be sacrificed - (have my heart ripped from my chest by the priest wielding his stone knife or get run out of the pack by snarling, snapping alphas) - the most sacred hierarchy, that fated arrangement, the glue of the universe, will unstick. The evolution will never itself, and life as we know it will subside entirely, until only the simplest animal form remain - jellyfish headless globs of cells, with only microscopic whips for legs and tails. Great swirling arms of gas will arm wrestle for eons to win cosmic dominance. Starless, undifferentiated chaos will reign. II. I alone of little escaped a hell of beating, neglect, and snuffling dumpsters for sustenance before this gullible man adopted me. Now my new owner would like me to walk nicely by his side on a leash (without cowering or pulling) and to lie down on a towel when he asks, regardless of whether he has a piece of bologna in his pocket or not. I’m growing fond of that optimistic young man in spite of myself. If only he would heed my warnings I’d pour out my thoughts to him: When panic strikes you like a squall wind and disaster falls on you like a gale, when you are hunted and scorned, wisdom shouts aloud in the streets: What is consciousness? What is sensation? What is mind? What is pain? What about the sorrows of unwatered houseplants? What indoor cloudburst will slake their thirst? What of my littler brothers and sisters, dead at the hands of dirty two legged brutes? Who’s the ghost in the universe behind its existence, necessary to everything that happens? Is it the pajama-clad man offering a strip of bacon in his frightening hand (who’ll take me to the park to play ball if he ever gets dressed)? Is it his quiet, wet-eyed, egg-frying wife? Dear Lord, Is it me?

Prepare a bundt pan by greasing and then sprinkle the pecans in the bottom of the pan. Cut the bread in half and then each half into 8 pieces. Roll the 16 pieces into balls, and place in the pan on top of the pecans. In a bowl, mix the brown sugar and melted butter and set aside. Sprinkle the pudding over the rolls and then cinnamon. Pour the butter mixture over the rolls. Cover the rolls with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 6 hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the wrap from the pan, bake rolls for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 16 rolls.                               Apple Raisin Bread Pudding   Ingredients 6 eggs 1 cup milk 1/2 cup heavy cream 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 tsp ground nutmeg 16 ounce loaf cinnamon bread with raisins, cut into 1-inch cubes 2 sliced apples  1 cup brown sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 cup melted butter 1 diced apple  

Back in the beginning of the last chapter, I was wondering whether you needed a human observer to collapse the wave function, or if a robot would suffice. Now I was convinced that consciousness had nothing to do with it, since even a single particle could do the trick: a single photon bouncing off of an object had the same effect as if a person observed it. I realized that quantum observation isn't about consciousness, but simply about the transfer of information. Finally I understood why we never see macroscopic objects in two places at once even if they're in two places at once: it's not because they're big, but because they're hard to isolate! A bowling ball outdoors typically gets struck by about 10^20 photons and 10^27 air molecules every second. It's by definition impossible for me to see something without it getting struck by photons, since I can only see it when photons (light) bounce off it, so a bowling ball that's in two places at once will have its quantum superposition ruined even before I have a chance to become consciously aware of it. In contrast, if you pump out as many air molecules as you can with a good vacuum pump, an electron can typically survive for about a second without colliding with anything, which is plenty enough time for it to demonstrate funky quantum-superposition behavior. For example, it takes only a quadrillionth as long (about 10^-15 seconds) for an electron to orbit an atom, so there will be almost no effect on its ability to be on all sides of the atom at once.

No one should look this good in a pair of bowling shoes, but of course Ethan looks like a god. Like he should be in a loincloth, flinging a discus instead of hefting a sapphire-blue bowling ball and staring down the pins as though they’ve personally insulted his mother. 

It’s impossible to un-know a secret. Once you know it, you own it. It can’t be returned like a borrowed book. Or burned like a love letter. The click of a mouse won’t delete it from the conscious mind. It’ll stick to the walls of your memory like dried oatmeal to a dish. The secrets you wish you never knew become a burden to lug. A bowling ball without holes. Some

3 cups flour 2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon table salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon bananas (about 3) 2 cups diced overripe bananas 3 beaten eggs 1 cup chopped toasted pecans 1 cup vegetable oil 2 tablespoons honey 1 (8-oz.) can crushed pineapple, drained Preheat oven to 350°. Sift together first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; add the remainder of the ingredients, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Pour batter into 4 greased and floured 9-inch square or round cake pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for about 10 minutes; then remove from pans and place the cakes on wire racks, to cool completely. Browned Butter Frosting 1 cup butter 1 lb. powdered sugar ¼ cup milk 1 tablespoon honey Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly for 8 to 10 minutes or until butter begins to turn golden-brown. Remove pan immediately from heat, and pour butter into a small bowl. Chill for an hour or until butter begins to solidify. Beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy, and add sugar alternately with milk. Stir in the honey. Frost the cake and sprinkle with pecans. Chill for at least 1 hour before serving to make it easier to cut and serve.

Johnny slowed, picked his way through a ten-foot patch of bigger stones, about the size of bowling balls. Maybe if I ignored Ditto he'd clap his trap. Ditto said, "What you think the public would think of us?" "Most of 'em would cheer us on, but we'd end up villains anyway." "How you figure?" "The media would make us out to be monsters and find a couple dozen Americans who agreed with them and blast it twenty-four-seven." "Assholes," he said. "Somebody's

BROWN RICE TORTILLAS Phase 2 Elimination This is one of the most popular recipes from our blog, NourishingMeals.com. Use these tortillas to make Black Bean, Yam, and Avocado Tacos (here) or Pomegranate Chicken Tacos (here). You can also serve them alongside your favorite soup or stew for dipping. They are soft and pliable when warm, but straight out of the fridge, like most gluten-free tortillas, they will crack. All you need to do to make them pliable again is to place one on a wire rack over a pot of simmering water and steam for 30 seconds on each side. I use an 8-inch cast-iron tortilla press to get them super thin, and then cook them in a cast-iron pan. 1¼ cups brown rice flour or sprouted brown rice flour ¾ cup arrowroot powder or tapioca flour ½ teaspoon sea salt 1 cup boiling water virgin coconut oil for cooking In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the brown rice flour, arrowroot, and salt. Add the boiling water and quickly mix with a fork. Knead the dough a few times to form a ball. It should have the texture of Play-Doh. If it is too wet and sticky, add more flour. If it is too dry, add a little more boiling water. Heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Divide the dough into six to eight equal-size balls. Place a piece of parchment paper on the bottom of a tortilla press, then place one of the balls in the center and cover with a second sheet of parchment. Press to form a thin, round tortilla. Add about 1 teaspoon coconut oil to the hot skillet. Gently remove the parchment paper and place the tortilla in the hot skillet. Cook for 2 minutes on each side. Repeat with the remaining dough, adding more coconut oil to the skillet each time. Place the cooked tortillas on a plate with another plate flipped over on top of it to keep them warm and soft. Let them sit for about 20 minutes inside the plates; this way, they will be nice and pliable for serving. Yield: 6 to 8 tortillas

Rick shrugged, took a sip of his beer, and looked around the dim bar. Raucous laughter came from one of the four nearly felt-less and ancient pool tables near the back. The noise bounced off the wood-paneled walls, making it travel across the floor like a bowling ball. The place hadn’t changed since he and Paul had started frequenting it after college, except that, by law, all smokers had been banished outside. As a result, every time the thick wood front door opened, a fresh cloud of second hand smoke blew in.

This is a sport where a ball with three holes is thrown down a wooden lane. The goal is to knock down as many pins as possible. If you hit all 10 in the first throw, it is a strike. If all 10 are knocked down on the second throw it is called a spare. Bowling remains popular in as many as 90 countries.

I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel like I’m just kind of hanging on right now. I feel like a kid out of control and incredibly inept.” The man nodded again. “Yes, you feel like there’s no holes in your bowling ball. It feels big and clumsy and awkward and you can’t get a good grip on it. You can’t control it.

Also, her body had not pushed four bowling balls out her vagina, so she had that going for her too.

Meatball Munchies – 3 grams carbs per serving – 4 balls per serving What you will need: Pinch of salt Pinch of garlic 1 teaspoon paprika 1 tablespoon pepper ¼cup dried parsley 1 egg 1 pound ground burger Directions: Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix together with clean hands. Wash hands thoroughly after mixing. Grab small handfuls of meat and roll into balls, then place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes. Garnish with a bit of Swiss cheese for the last 5 minutes.

Makes 12 biscuits 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt ¼ cup (50 g) cold lard or vegetable shortening, cut into bits, plus more for the skillet 1 cup (240 ml) milk • Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add the lard and rub it in with your fingers until the mixture is mealy. Add the milk and mix until a smooth dough forms. Divide the dough in half, and form each half into 6 balls. Flatten each ball to be about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. • Melt a tablespoon or two of lard in a medium castiron skillet over medium-low heat. Add 6 dough pieces and fry on both sides until browned, about 6 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels and repeat with the remaining dough pieces.

I adore macaroni and cheese. Whenever I see it on a menu at a restaurant, I have to order it. I’ve had (and consequently made) fried mac and cheese balls, lobster mac and cheese, truffle mac and cheese, quattro formaggi mac and cheese, and Kraft mac and cheese. Now, don’t get me wrong—all of the fancy macaroni and cheese dishes have been delectable and enjoyable, but at home, I like a simple, delicious mac and cheese. So here’s my recipe. This dish is best when served during a game or movie night with family and friends. Serves 8 to 10 8 ounces (225 g) elbow macaroni 1½ cups Velveeta cheese (about 7 ounces/190g), cut into ½-inch cubes 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour 1½ teaspoons kosher salt 1½ teaspoons dry mustard ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper ⅔ cup (165 ml) sour cream 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 1½ cups (360 ml) half-and-half 1½ cups (360 ml) heavy cream ⅓ cup (55 g) grated onion 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 2 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese (about 8 ounces/230g) • Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9-by-13-inch (23-by-33-cm) baking dish. Bring a 4-quart (3.8-L) saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook it halfway through, about 3 minutes. Drain the pasta and transfer it to the baking dish. Stir in the cubed Velveeta. • Combine the flour, salt, mustard, black pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne in a large mixing bowl. Add the sour cream and eggs and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the half-and-half, cream, onion, Worcestershire sauce, and a sprinkle of black pepper. Pour the egg mixture over the pasta mixture in the prepared baking dish and stir to combine. Sprinkle the Cheddar cheese evenly over the surface. Bake until the pasta mixture is set around the edges but still a bit loose in the center, about 30 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Cherry Cream Cheese Surprise Recipe   Ingredients: From Scratch Pie Crust: (8 or 9 inch pie crust) 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening (Crisco) OR 1/3 cup lard 1 cup all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water Steps: Cut shortening into flour and salt until particles are the size of small peas.  Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans side of bowl (1 to 2 tablespoons water can be added, if needed.) Gather pastry into a ball.  Flatten the ball on a lightly floured cloth-covered board. (A hard, floured surface will also work.) Roll pastry 2 inches larger than inverted pie plate using floured rolling pin.  (Note: I use a lightly floured spatula to loosen the piecrust from the surface.) Fold pastry into quarters, unfold and ease into lightly greased pie plate, pressing firmly against bottom and sides of plate.  Trim overhang excess and then press fork tines along rim of pie plate.  Cream Cheese Layer: 8 ounces whipped cream cheese ½ cup white sugar ½ tsp. vanilla extract Mix ingredients and spread on the bottom and sides of the piecrust. Mix 1 tablespoon brown sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon together and sprinkle over top of cream cheese mixture.   PREHEAT OVEN TO 375 DEGREES. Cherry Pie Filling: 4 cups fresh or frozen cherries, thawed (if frozen, make sure to drain juice after thawing) ¾ cup sugar 3 tbsp cornstarch or Mix ingredients and pour on top of cream cheese/brown sugar and cinnamon mixture. Topping: 2/3 cup packed brown sugar ½ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup oats ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg ½ cup margarine or butter, softened Mix ingredients and sprinkle over top of cherry mixture.   Bake 30 minutes at 375 degrees.  *For a quicker, easier version, substitute with a refrigerated (ready-to-bake) pie crust and 2 cans of cherry pie filling. *Serve warm with ice cream…or eat a piece for breakfast with a fresh cup of coffee .

Brandon lightly brushed his hand over Liam’s head before he dropped both of them to my waist and then over where my stomach used to be. “Do you miss it?” His hands had stilled for a second before sliding over my flat stomach again. I know, I know, I already have a lot of women that hate me. When we walk into the appointments for Liam, everyone asks if we adopted because within a week, my stomach went completely back to normal. It was mind blowing even to Brandon and me, and we definitely knew that my stomach had been close to the size of a beach ball not long before. I had one stretch mark, and it was mostly unnoticeable because it ran along a tip of one of my lilies. But if it weren’t for that and my chest, I would think I’d made the entire pregnancy up and just stolen a baby from the hospital. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen either way.” He shrugged and kissed the top of my head, “I do miss it, but I’m glad that he’s here now. It will just take some time to get used to not having your stomach there. Like right now, I keep going to run my hands over it, and then they just continue to slide straight across and it throws me off for a second.” “Throws you off? Think about how I felt when I went to set that bowl on my stomach and it fell into my lap.” Brandon’s husky laugh sent a shiver through me. “I’m sorry, but that was funny as hell. Your face was priceless.” Liam

I had just climbed on top of the counter when Konrad reached over me and grabbed the bowls, smirking when I glared at him. He didn’t even have to go on the balls of his feet. “Damn tall people.” I muttered under my breath. “Hey

I had just climbed on top of the counter when Konrad reached over me and grabbed the bowls, smirking when I glared at him. He didn’t even have to go on the balls of his feet. “Damn tall people.” I muttered under my breath. “Hey sis! Hey Bree,” Jeremy hugged her quick, and turned to do a “guy hug” with Konrad, “Konrad, what’s up man?” He stepped over to where I was still sitting on the counter and I frowned when I realized he was still taller than me even when I was up here, “Trying to reach the bowls again Harper?” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek before whispering, “Congrats sis. I’m really happy for you guys.” I hugged him tightly back, “Thanks Jer, and thanks for coming.” “I

I had just climbed on top of the counter when Konrad reached over me and grabbed the bowls, smirking when I glared at him. He didn’t even have to go on the balls of his feet. “Damn tall people.” I muttered under my breath. “Hey sis! Hey Bree,” Jeremy hugged her quick, and turned to do a “guy hug” with Konrad, “Konrad, what’s up man?” He stepped over to where I was still sitting on the counter and I frowned when I realized he was still taller than me even when I was up here, “Trying to reach the bowls again Harper?” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek before whispering, “Congrats sis. I’m really happy for you guys.” I hugged him tightly back, “Thanks Jer, and thanks for coming.” “I brought my girlfriend, is that okay?” “Jeremy, you have a girlfriend?!” His face lit up and he had a huge grin, “Are you even old enough for one of those yet?” I laughed when he playfully punched my arm. “I’m seventeen, not twelve.” I got all serious, “Oh yes, of course. How could I ever forget?” I looked around him, “Well where is she? I want to meet this girl who stole my brother-in-law’s heart.” “She’s with Laura and Kate, but she’s really shy, so Bree” he turned to look at her, “go easy on her, okay?” Bree put a hand to her chest, “Who me? Shy people are my specialty. Just ask Harper.” We all laughed and Jeremy eyed me curiously, “Sis, what the fuck are you doing?” “Language!” I chastised him but started giggling uncontrollably when I still couldn’t get down, “I can’t get back down. I usually can’t even jump up here. How the hell did I get up here Konrad?” “Language!” Jeremy tried to mimic my pitch as he scooped me off the counter. “God you’re so short.” “No, the rest of you are just freakishly tall.” I pushed him away from me and went to stand by Bree, since she was much closer to my height. “Aww, are they making fun of you again sweetheart?” Brandon was grinning when he rounded the corner, “I can’t believe anyone would ever make fun of your height. Because you’re average height, right?” I glared at him until he wrapped his arms around me with my favorite smile and his dimple flashing at me, “Exactly.

But our focus center does get turned on at times. It gets turned on by : 1. Things that happen to be of personal interest to us. I have no interest in taxes and bookkeeping. It’s very hard for me to get the taxes done. But I’m interested in writing, and I can do that, at least once I can get started. 2. Something that is novel to us. So I get excited when someone takes me bowling for the first time and shows me how to do it. I want to go out and buy a ball and some good bowling shoes, and I’m bowling every night for a month, and then I’m done. The expensive ball and shoes go in the back of the closet, and I’m off on some other new obsessive interest, probably also temporary, because nothing can stay new, novel, for very long. 3. Something that is a challenge. When I take something as personally challenging, I want to master it, or I want to show that I can do it better than someone else. And of course, once I’ve mastered it, it not only is no longer novel but it’s no longer a challenge. So then I lose interest, and the focus is gone. 4. Something with an immediate deadline, with heavy consequences. That’s why we can finally get around to doing the assignment the night before it’s due. We stay up all night and very likely we even do a good job. And if it doesn’t go so well, still we can protect our self esteem by saying, “Well, I only got to it at the last moment.

I nodded my head and swung my arm backwards, but I screeched when the ball fell out of my hand. I quickly turned and scrambled after it. "It's okay; it's okay. Nothin' was broken I have it under control. Nothin' to see here folks," I called out to the staff members who stared at me and shook their heads. I looked to Dominic, who took up two seats because he fell to his side from laughing so hard. "Shut the f**k up, you're makin' a scene." "The scene," Dominic laughed, "Was made when you decided to throw a bowling ball in the air." I huffed. "It slipped out of me hand... and nothin' was broken so give it a rest." He continued to laugh. "I wish I recorded that." Fucking f**kface.

Red ’n’ Whites 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened 1 3-ounce package cream cheese, softened ½ cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 36 small ripe strawberries, hulled and halved Preheat the oven to 350°. In a mixing bowl, beat the butter with the cream cheese until well blended. Beat in the sugar and vanilla, then stir in the flour until well mixed. Using a ½-tablespoon measure, shape the mixture into small balls and place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Make a small indentation in the top of each cookie with your thumb. Carefully place a strawberry half, cut side down, in each indentation. Bake for 12 to 18 minutes or until very lightly browned. Cool on racks. Makes 5 dozen.

underline the cultural wealth of Europe as compared with America’s supposed cultural wasteland, Simone de Beauvoir compared the French ball game pétanque with bowling. Boules or petanque is played in the shadows of majestic trees on a village square, where the unevenness of the ground is part of the game. Bowling is played in lifeless, sterile halls, where perfect spheres race at rapid speed across millimeter-perfect lanes toward completely identical plastic figures, in order to be sent back to the players by machines.82

stopping every 2 – 2 ½ minutes to stir. Remove from microwave. Drop a little of this mixture into cup of ice-cold water. Mixture should be at the soft ball stage. If not, return to microwave for 30 seconds and test again. Remove from microwave. Stir in chocolate chips until melted. Add marshmallow crème/marshmallows. Stir until blended. Add vanilla. Because fudge is creamiest when it cools quickly, stirring is of utmost importance. If you have a KitchenAid or other industrial strength mixer, pour the fudge mixture into the mixing bowl and blend for several minutes on a medium speed. Otherwise, stir by hand until mixture cools a bit.

Mel’s Fondant Recipe Mel and Oz use a lot of fondant in their creations, so here is their tried-and-true fondant recipe so you can make fondant of your own. 16 ounce package of marshmallows ¼ cup water 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 32 ounces confectioner’s sugar ¼ cup butter Using a large microwave-safe bowl, pour in the marshmallows and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Stir in the water and vanilla until smooth. Using a mixer on low, gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar, setting aside one cup of sugar for kneading, until a sticky dough forms. Use the butter to coat your hands and then start to work the dough in the bowl until it becomes less sticky. Turn the dough out onto a large piece of parchment paper and continue kneading with the remaining sugar, about ten minutes, until the fondant is pliable. When it reaches its desired consistency, shape it into a ball and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight. When you are ready to use the fondant, let it come to room temperature and dust with confectioner’s sugar while rolling it out.

But I also watched him closely, waiting to see that love of food. The surprised delight on his face when he took his first slurp of the brisket ramen, enjoying the tender shreds of savory meat, the chew of the crinkly noodles, the light but complex broth that hid the reveal of a plush matzah ball with a thick corn flavor. The concentration as he tried to place the flavor of the rub on the bowl of shredded carnitas that we portioned out ourselves and wrapped in marbled rye tortillas with tiny sour pickles and thinly sliced red onions and shreds of Havarti cheese. ("It's a pastrami sandwich," he murmured as he took the first bite.) The sheer pleasure as he closed his eyes while chewing the duck, rosy and meaty in the middle and crispy-skinned on the outside, in one perfect bite with pickled and fresh beets. I didn't have to look hard. It radiated out of his very soul.

Scarborough, ME, and Hobe Sound, FL. Thank you, Paula! Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal (not quick cooking type), divided use 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. salt 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened 1 cup granulated sugar 1 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar 1 tbsp. vanilla extract 3/4 cup chunky peanut butter 2 large eggs 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips 8 oz. semisweet chocolate, grated (may substitute 8 oz. semisweet chocolate chips and process until finely ground in food processor) Directions: Place 1 cup oatmeal in bowl of food processor; pulse until finely ground. Transfer to a large bowl and add remaining 1/2 cup whole oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Reserve. In another large bowl, combine butter and both sugars and beat on medium speed of electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and peanut butter. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in reserved oat/flour mixture. Add chocolate chips and grated chocolate, beating just until combined. Chill cookie dough, covered, at least 2 hours and up to 1 week. Form rounded tablespoons of dough into balls and arrange about 2 inches apart on parchment-lined sheet pans. Flatten balls slightly and bake in a preheated 325°F oven in batches in middle of oven 15-17 minutes or until just slightly firm—do not overbake! Cool cookies 5 minutes and transfer to racks to cool completely. Yield: 4-1/2 dozen cookies.