Cap Gift Quotes

Remind me again-why do you hate me so much?" I don't hate you." Could've fooled me." She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look...we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals." Why?" She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her." They must really like olives." Oh, forget it." Now, if she'd invented pizza-that I could understand.

I've tried to get the angel to watch MTV so I can learn the vocabulary of your music, but even with the gift of tongues, I'm having trouble learning to speak hip-hop. Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must busta cap in someone's ass? Is "ho" always feminine, and "muthafucka" always masculine, while "bitch" can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to get all up in that, and do I need to be dope and phat to be da bomb or can I just be "stupid"? I'll not be singing over any dead mothers until I understand.

I close his fingers around the gift. “I threw away your bottle cap, because it killed me to look at. But I never could throw away this. I’ve been waiting to give it to you for two and a half years.” “I don’t know what to say,” he whispers. “I’m almost full,” I say. “Thank you for waiting for me, too.

Regardless, they were as lovely as two bouquets of red roses Still, I remembered those hidden thorns! As a kid, they delivered a double dose of whip-ass that put more knots on my head than bumps on a toad frog. Yes, I had residual wounds and a set of T-shirts from those run-ins. The wrong wordor a misguided flirt could’ve restarted a continuum on my skull. Mary and Martha were Boss Chicks when I entered first grade. Jerry gave me big brotherly advice on how to greet beautiful girls. His Game: “Make eye contact, give off a big smile, and then tilt your cap.” Got it! I was down for a double fantasy. Well, as I approached the sisters and made the “Big Move,” unfortunately they delivered a few shots and a couple of jolts respectively to mycranium that rung every bell I had. Apparently, they didn’t like boys hitting on them at that stage of their youth. So, I learned to stay in my lane and never take any more tips from Jerry.

What was I thinking?" Chiron cried. " I can't let you get away without this." He pulled a pen from his coat pocket. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably thirty cents. Gee," I said. "Thanks." Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the profecy is clear to me now. You are the one. I remembered the feild trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be...? I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather=wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hands. The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "It's name is Anaklusmos." Riptide," I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily. Use it only for emergencies" Chiron said, "and only against monsters No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case.

Psipsina emerged from inside the tunic, and jumped up on the table in order to curl up inside the cap, which had been her favourite resting place ever since she discovered the joys of contortionism; she filled it and overflowed from it in such a tangle and jumble of whiskers, ears, tail and paws that it was impossible to tell which part of her was which, and she slept in it because it reminded her of gifts of salami and chicken skins.

You'll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse,' Denzel Washington often said as we worked together on 'Fences.' 'I don't care how much money you have or what level of notoriety you've achieved, you can't take any of it with you.' There is a cap on earthly success, a ceiling on the amount of joy that possessions and awards can bring before disillusionment sets in. Our appearance, our prosperity, the applause: all of it is so fleeting. But a life of true significance has unlimited impact. It is measured in how well we've loved those around us, how much we've given away, how many seeds we've sown along our path. During her ninety-six years, Ms. [Cicely] Tyson has discovered the potent elixir: she has lived a life of that is bigger than she is, an existence grounded in purpose and flourishing in service to others. That is her defining masterpiece. That is her enduring gift to us all. [Viola Davis, Foreword]

He is on his way to her. In a moment he will leave the wooden sidewalks and vacant lots for the paved streets. The small suburban houses flash by like the pages of a book, not as when you turn them over one by one with your forefinger but as when you hold your thumb on the edge of the book and let them all swish past at once. The speed is breathtaking. And over there is her house at the far end of the street, under the white gap in the rain clouds where the sky is clearing, toward the evening. How he loves the little houses in the street that lead to her! He could pick them up and kiss them! Those one-eyed attics with their roofs pulled down like caps. And the lamps and icon lights reflected in the puddles and shining like berries! And her house under the white rift of the sky! There he will again receive the dazzling, God-made gift of beauty from the hands of its Creator. A dark muffled figure will open the door, and the promise of her nearness, unowned by anyone in the world and guarded and cold as a white northern night, will reach him like the first wave of the sea as you run down over the sandy beach in the dark.

I’d spent months carefully winding my gift into a tight spool, only letting it out by inches, and only when I needed it. The strain of keeping it bound up had been a steady, constant reminder that I had to work to keep the life I’d built for myself out here. It was a muscle I’d carefully toned to withstand nearly any pressure. Letting it all go felt like shaking a bottle of soda and ripping off the cap. It fizzed and flooded and swept out of me, searching for the connections waiting to be made. I didn’t guide it, and I didn’t stop it—I don’t know if I could have if I tried. I was the burning center of a galaxy of faces, memories, loves, heartbreaks, disappointments, and dreams. It was like living dozens of different lives. I was lifted and shattered by it, how strangely beautiful it was to feel their minds linked with my own. The spinning inside my head slowed with the movement around me. I felt time hovering nearby, waiting to resume its usual tempo. The darkness slid into the edges of my vision, seeping through my mind like a drop of ink in water. But I was in control of the moment, and there was one last thing that I needed to say to them, one last idea to imprint in their minds. “I’m Green.

Skinny as Mum was, she'd always had a good appetite, so when she couldn't eat her roast potatoes I knew the end must be nigh. [...] We opened our presents and Mum put a polka-dot shower cap on her head and let us take pictures of her in it, which was most unlike her, she liked to be a bit dignified about things. This was another indication that she knew she was dying. Other signs to look out for are when an elderly person starts giving away their things – usually about two or three years before they die – and if they insist, rather aggressively, on returning anything they've borrowed or get annoyed if you give them gifts – they don't want any more clutter.

I do not believe that gifts, whether of mind or character, can be weighed like sugar and butter, not even in Cambridge, where they are so adept at putting people into classes and fixing caps upon their heads and letters after their names.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

Tim collected his gifts within the metal hoop and then pestered Santa for more, investigating pockets, sticking his hands into straw, lifting the sides of the red coat until he contacted a Smith and Wesson revolver. The boy snatched his hand back as if it were burnt and scowled at the man in the red suit. "You're not Santa Claus; you're Daddy." Charley called across the room, "He's one of Santa's helpers!" Jesse sat low in the chair with his boots kicked out, drew off the soft red cap by its cotton ball, then reached out and snuggled Tim close to his chest. He said, "Let me tell you a secret, son: there's always a mean old wolf in Grandma's bed, and a worm inside the apple. There's always a daddy inside the Santa suit. It's a world of trickery.

Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and "fall into a vortex" as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace. Her "scribbling suit" consisted of a black woollen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This cap was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads semi-occasionally, to ask, with interest, "Does genius burn, Jo?" They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on; in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew; and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor. At such times the intruder silently withdrew; and not until the red bow was seen gayly erect upon the gifted brow, did any one dare address Jo.

Just let me grab my thinking cap,” she told him, heading for her locker. The long floppy hat was required during midterms, designed to restrict Telepaths and preserve the integrity of the tests—not that anything could block Sophie’s enhanced abilities. But after the exams, the hats became present sacks, and everyone filled them with treats and trinkets and treasures. “I’ll need to inspect your presents before you open them,” Sandor warned as he helped Sophie lift her overstuffed hat. “That’s perfect,” Fitz said. “While he does that, you can open mine.” He pulled a small box from the pocket of his waist-length cape and handed it to Sophie. The opalescent wrapping paper had flecks of teal glitter dusted across it, and he’d tied it with a silky teal bow, making her wonder if he’d guessed her favorite color. She really hoped he couldn’t guess why. . . . “Hopefully I did better this year,” Fitz said. “Biana claimed the riddler was a total fail.” The riddle-writing pen he’d given her last time had been a disappointment, but . . . “I’m sure I’ll love it,” Sophie promised. “Besides. My gift is boring.” Sandor had declared an Atlantis shopping trip to be far too risky, so Sophie had spent the previous day baking her friends’ presents. She handed Fitz a round silver tin and he popped the lid off immediately. “Ripplefluffs?” he asked, smiling his first real smile in days. The silver-wrapped treats were what might happen if a brownie and a cupcake had a fudgey, buttery baby, with a candy surprise sunken into the center. Sophie’s adoptive mother, Edaline, had taught her the recipe

but even with the gift of tongues, I’m having trouble learning to speak hip-hop. Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must busta cap in someone’s ass? Is “ho” always feminine, and “muthafucka” always masculine, while “bitch” can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to get all up in that, and do I need to be dope and

And to me, they gave a helmet of invisibility. Sometimes my gift was called the "cap" of invisibility. Seriously? Caps are what baseball players wear. Caps are cute. Caps are silly. The king of the underworld does not wear a "cap". It's a helmet, people. You wouldn't call Poseidon's trident a "shrimp fork," would you? Or Zeus's lightning bolts, "sparklers"? So don't let me hear you say "cap." Furthermore, I don't want to hear anything about some wizard-boy's "Cloak of Invisibility," either. Mine came first.

During the seventh inning stretch, we stood up and sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Jason and I swayed together. I couldn’t have been happier. The Rangers won. “See how it makes a difference when rituals are honored?” Jason said, his arm around my waist keeping me anchored against his side. “I’m too happy to argue,” I said. We stopped off in the gift shop, and he bought me a Texas Rangers cap. “Maybe you can start decorating a wall with caps from the games we go to,” he said. I grinned broadly, because I knew what he was really saying: Tonight was just the beginning for us.

THIS IS WHAT they want. The words tumbled through Sophie’s mind as she raced up the spiral staircase, counting her steps, trying to guess which door to take. The first handle she tried was locked. Another opened into darkness. A third revealed a path that glowed with eerie blue balefire sconces. The floor shook as she hesitated and threads of dust slipped through the ceiling, scratching her throat and making it hurt to breathe. She followed the flames. Back and forth the halls snaked—a careful maze, designed to deceive. Swallow. Separate. The tremors grew with every step, the shifting subtle but unmistakable. And too far away. No one else would feel the ripples swelling, like waves gathering speed. They were too focused on their celebration. Too caught up in their imagined victory. Too trusting. Too blind. Too late. The ground rattled harder, the first fissures crackling the stones. This is what they want. ONE THIS IS A security nightmare!” Sandor grumbled, keeping his huge gray hand poised over his enormous black sword. His squeaky voice reminded Sophie more of a talking mouse than a deadly bodyguard. Several prodigies raced past, and Sandor pulled Sophie closer as the giggling group jumped to pop the candy-filled bubbles floating near the shimmering crystal trees. All around them, kids were running through the confetti-covered atrium in their amber-gold Level Three uniforms, capes flying as they caught snacks and bottles of lushberry juice and stuffed tinsel-wrapped gifts into the long white thinking caps dangling from everyone’s lockers. The Midterms Celebration was a Foxfire Academy tradition—hardly the impending doom Sandor was imagining. And yet, Sophie understood his concern. Every parent roaming the streamer-lined halls. Every face she didn’t recognize. Any of them could be a rebel.

They reached for her, faces shadowed and twisted. Yet—yet even those faces, so warped with hatred … she still loved them—even if they loathed her, even if it ached; loved them until their hissing faded, until they vanished like smoke, leaving only Aelin lying beside her, as she had been all along. She looked at Aelin’s face—the face she’d once worn—and at her still outstretched hand, so small and unscarred. The darkness of the Valg princes flickered. There was solid ground beneath her. Moss and grass. Not hell—earth. The earth on which her kingdom lay, green and mountainous and as unyielding as its people. Her people. Her people, waiting for ten years, but no longer. She could see the snow-capped Staghorns, the wild tangle of Oakwald at their feet, and … and Orynth, that city of light and learning, once a pillar of strength—and her home. It would be both again. She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness. She was not afraid.

The rainy winter days passed quickly. Thanksgiving came and not long afterward Christmas vacation. Ramona missed Daisy, who went with her family to visit her grandparents. When she returned, the girls spent an afternoon dressing up Roberta in the clothes she had received for Christmas. Roberta was agreeable to having a dress pulled over her head, her arms stuffed into a sweater, her head shoved into caps. She enjoyed the girls’ admiration. She was not so happy about a pair of crocheted slippers with ears and tails that looked like rabbits, a gift from Howie’s grandmother, who enjoyed crocheting. Roberta did not care for the slippers.

Well, imagine you are alone in a room. The lights are down low, you’ve got some scented candles going. Soothing New Age tunes, nothing too druid-chanty, seep out of the hi-fi to gently massage your cerebral cortex. Feel good? Are you the best, most special person in the room right now? Yes. That’s the gift of being alone. Then a bozo in a CAT Diesel Power cap barges in. What’s the chance that you are the best, most special person in the room now? Fifty-fifty. If you both were dealt two cards, those would be your odds of holding the winning hand. Now imagine ten people are in the room. It’s cramped. You’re elbow to elbow, aerosolized dandruff floats in the air, and the candle’s lavender scent is complicated by BO tones, with a tuna sandwich finish. What are the chances you’re the best, most special person in the room? If you were handed cards, you might expect to be crowned one time out of ten. People, as ever, are the problem. The more people there are, the tougher you have it. Just by sitting next to you, they fuck you up, as if life were nothing more than a bus ride to hell (which it is). But what if you moved to another seat? Changed position? Your seat is everything. It can give you room to relax, to contemplate your next move. Or it might instigate your unraveling.

hotel where their relationship had finally been consummated. The Hôtel du Cap was one of the most beautiful, exclusive, and illustrious hotels in Europe, with prices to match. The main building had marble halls, high ceilings, and magnificent rooms and suites, most of them looking out at the sea shimmering like glass. There was an impressive outdoor staircase leading down to the even more exclusive Eden Roc, with gardens on either side of the wide path and closer to the water. It was the vacation spot for aristocrats, royalty, the immensely rich, and in recent years jet-setters, Russian tycoons, and movie stars, many of whom preferred to stay at the less formal lower building, with smaller but still elegantly appointed suites, and even better views of the sea from their balconies. There

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in. I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons. They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in. The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble, They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps, Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another, So it is impossible to tell how many there are. My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently. They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep. Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage—— My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox, My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks. I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations. Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head. I am a nun now, I have never been so pure. I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free—— The peacefulness is so big it dazes you, And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets. It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet. The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds. They are subtle : they seem to float, though they weigh me down, Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color, A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. Nobody watched me before, now I am watched. The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins, And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips, And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself. The vivid tulips eat my oxygen. Before they came the air was calm enough, Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss. Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise. Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine. They concentrate my attention, that was happy Playing and resting without committing itself. The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves. The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. --"Tulips", written 18 March 1961

Because we don't know, do we? Everyone knows . . . How what happens the way it does? What underlies the anarchy of the train of events, the uncertainties, the mishaps, the disunity, the shocking irregularities that define human affairs? Nobody knows, Professor Roux. "Everyone knows" is the invocation of the cliche and the beginning of the banalization of experience, and it's the solemnity and the sense of authority that people have in voicing the cliché that's so insufferable. What we know is that, in an unclichéd way, nobody knows anything. You can't know anything. The things you know you don't know. Intention? Motive? Consequence? Meaning? All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing. As the audience filed back in, I began, cartoonishly, to envisage the fatal malady that, without anyone's recognizing it, was working away inside us, within each and every one of us: to visualize the blood vessels occluding under the baseball caps, the malignancies growing beneath the permed white hair, the organs misfiring, atrophying, shutting down, the hundreds of billions of murderous cells surreptitiously marching this entire audience toward the improbable disaster ahead. I couldn't stop myself. The stupendous decimation that is death sweeping us all away. Orchestra, audience, conductor, technicians, swallows, wrens—think of the numbers for Tanglewood alone just between now and the year 4000. Then multiply that times everything. The ceaseless perishing. What an idea! What maniac conceived it? And yet what a lovely day it is today, a gift of a day, a perfect day lacking nothing in a Massachusetts vacation spot that is itself as harmless and pretty as any on earth.

Her people, waiting for ten years, but no longer. She could see the snow-capped Staghorns, the wild tangle of Oakwald at their feet, and … and Orynth, that city of light and learning, once a pillar of strength—and her home. It would be both again. She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness. She was not afraid. She would remake the world—remake it for them, those she had loved with this glorious, burning heart; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the Afterworld, she would not be ashamed. She would build it for her people, who had survived this long, and whom she would not abandon. She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath.

_To Santa Claus_ Most tangible of all the gods that be, O Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy! As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then, Take us as children to thy heart again. Be wholly good to us, just as of old: As a pleased father, let thine arms infold Us, homed within the haven of thy love, And all the cheer and wholesomeness thereof. Thou lone reality, when O so long Life's unrealities have wrought us wrong: Ambition hath allured us--, fame likewise, And all that promised honor in men's eyes. Throughout the world's evasions, wiles, and shifts, Thou only bidest stable as thy gifts--: A grateful king re-ruleth from thy lap, Crowned with a little tinselled soldier-cap: A mighty general-- a nation's pride-- Thou givest again a rocking-horse to ride, And wildly glad he groweth as the grim Old jurist with the drum thou givest him: The sculptor's chisel, at thy mirth's command, Is as a whistle in his boyish hand; The painters model fadeth utterly, And there thou standest--, and he painteth thee--: Most like a winter pippin, sound and fine And tingling-red that ripe old face of thine, Set in thy frosty beard of cheek and chin As midst the snows the thaws of spring set in. Ho! Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy-- Most tangible of all the gods that be--! As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then, Take us as children to thy heart again.

In order to conform to the current Empire style in fashion, the modiste had raised the waistline so that it fell just beneath Esme's small rounded breasts. Mrs. Benson had embellished further by adding a slender grosgrain ribbon there that matched the exact shade of tiny embroidered golden flowers scattered over the gown's ivory satin. Next she had shortened the sleeves so they were now small puffed caps edged against the arms with more narrow golden ribbon. As for the long length of material that had once run from shoulder to heel, she'd removed it and used the excess fabric to create a sweeping train that ended in a spectacular half circle that trailed after Esme as she walked. The entire hem was further enlivened by small appliquéd white lace rosettes, whose effect was nothing short of ethereal. On her feet, Esme wore a soft pair of ivory satin slippers with gold and diamond buckles that had been a last-minute gift from Mallory and Adam. On her hands were long white silk gloves that ended just above her elbows; her lustrous dark hair was pinned and styled in an elaborate upsweep with a few soft curls left to brush in dainty wisps against her forehead and cheeks. Carefully draped over head was a waist-length veil of the finest Brussels lace, which had been another present, this one from Claire, and in her hands she held creamy pink hothouse roses and crisp green holly leaves banded together inside a wide white satin ribbon.

There is no word to describe exactly what the High Line is to the non-architects among us, nor the collective reframing process required to see beyond its dingy path. 24 The promenade’s landscaping and minimal architectural interference is meant to find a balance between “melancholia and exuberance,” Diller told me. “Whatever that intermediate thing is, it’s ineffable and is kind of what makes the High Line so popular.” “Part of what is so successful about the High Line is that it looks like it’s about nothing,” Diller said. Everything is prohibited on the promenade but the act of moving forward or stopping to look at the vistas from that vantage point. A dedicated place for strolling, where there are no dogs, no bicycles, or wheeled objects of any kind, it is “radically old fashioned,” designed to let us do what we ordinarily don’t, like taking time to linger and gaze at passing traffic. There is even a “sunken overlook” viewing station with movie-theater-style rows of descending seats and a window instead of a screen to see Tenth Avenue’s traffic instead of a featured film. Looking at the path beneath our feet and the view before us are the High Line’s activities. The High Line’s path will extend up the island in nearly interminable stages, “perpetually unfinished.” 25 As if to underscore it, on the west-facing side of the High Line, with views of the skyline and the Hudson River, sculptor Anatsui erected a monumental mural, Broken Bridge II, a three-dimensional painting the size of a city block made of flattened, dull-finish tin and mirrors with expert placement and hours of scaling. The vista in its upper reaches blends sky and land “in such a way that you do not know where mirrors end and sky begins.” 26 Anatsui, known for his radiant, monumental murals with a unique luster, fashioned as they are out of recycled metal bottle caps from his studio in Nigeria, starts his work from an approximate center with exquisite discards. He then builds outward, unscrolling the once-scattered shards so that they shine in their new form, as if they could unfurl to the full extent of vision.

With means, if more than a little diminished means, of his own Ethan had done what his father before him, likewise a lawyer, had done, and had once in days past counselled him to do before it was too late, before this might spell an irrevocable retirement. He made a Retreat. (To be sure he had not been bidden so far afield as had his father, who’d spent the last year of peace before the First World War as a legal adviser on international cotton law in Czarist Russia, whence he brought back to his young son in Wales, or so he announced, lifting it whole out of a mysterious deep-Christmas-smelling wooden box, a beautiful toy model of Moscow; a city of tiny magical gold domes, pumpkin- or Christmas-bell-shaped, sparkling with Christmas tinsel-scented snow, bright as new silver half-crowns, and of minuscule Byzantine chimes; and at whose miniature frozen street corners waited minute sleighs, in which Ethan had imagined years later lilliputian Tchitchikovs brooding, or corners where lurked snow-bound Raskolnikovs, their hands stayed from murder evermore: much later still he was to become unsure whether the city, sprouting with snow-freaked onions after all, was intended to be Moscow or St. Petersburg, for part of it seemed in memory built on little piles in the water, like Eridanus; the city coming out of the box he was certain was magic too—for he had never seen it again after that evening of his father’s return, in a strange astrakhan-collared coat and Russian fur cap—the box that was always to be associated also with his mother’s death, which had occurred shortly thereafter; the magic bulbar city going back into the magic scented box forever, and himself too afraid of his father to ask him about it later—though how beautiful for years to him was the word city, the carilloning word city in the Christmas hymn, Once in Royal David’s City, and the tumultuous angel-winged city that was Bunyan’s celestial city; beautiful, that was, until he saw a city—it was London—for the first time, sullen, in fog, and bloodshot as if with the fires of hell, and he had never to this day seen Moscow—so that while this remained in his memory as nearly the only kind action he could recall on the part of either of his parents, if not nearly the only happy memory of his entire childhood, he was constrained to believe the gift had actually been intended for someone else, probably for the son of one of his father’s clients: no, to be sure he hadn’t wandered as far afield as Moscow; nor had he, like his younger brother Gwyn, wanting to go to Newfoundland, set out, because he couldn’t find another ship, recklessly for Archangel; he had not gone into the desert nor to sea himself again or entered a monastery, and moreover he’d taken his wife with him; but retreat it was just the same.)

but even with the gift of tongues, I’m having trouble learning to speak hip-hop. Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must busta cap in someone’s ass? Is “ho” always feminine, and “muthafucka” always masculine, while “bitch” can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to get all up in that, and do I need to be dope and phat to be da bomb or can I just be “stupid”? I’ll not be singing over any dead mothers until I understand. The

A woman—” the king straightened up his skinny frame on the throne “—has the right to expect only two gifts from a man: a child in the summer and thin bast slippers in the winter. Both the former and the latter gifts are intended to keep the woman at home, since the home is the proper place for a woman—ascribed to her by nature. A woman with a swollen belly and offspring clinging to her frock will not stray from the home and no foolish ideas will occur to her, which guarantees her man peace of mind. A man with peace of mind can labour hard for the purpose of increasing the wealth and prosperity of his king. Neither do any foolish ideas occur to a man confident of his marriage while toiling by the sweat of his brow and with his nose to the grindstone. But if someone tells a woman she can have a child when she wants and when she doesn’t she mustn’t, and when to cap it all someone offers a method and passes her a physick, then, Honourable Lady, then the social order begins to totter.

Good women wear the cap of motherhood very well. Whether or not they have given birth does not matter. Good women make life so great.

Pissed-Off Poet's Credo: Limerick My Ass Motherfuckers There was a spoken-word poet from the hood Who busted kick-ass rhymes that nobody could. The homeboys believed he had a gift; Jealous poets gave this nigga short shrift ~ 'Till he busted a cap in their asses and the jealous poets shut-the-fuck-up for good.

They landed in a field with a light dusting of snow. “Middle of nowhere?” Elysia said, looking around. “Interesting choice.” “No waaaay!” Thrilled, Ferbus broke from the group and started running toward a series of objects on the horizon. Driggs snickered. “This should be fun.” As they got closer to Ferbus’s shouts of glee, the forms that had made no sense at a distance began to take shape into something that made even less sense: stacks of old automobiles, seemingly dropped from space but arranged in an undeniable pattern. “Carhenge!” Ferbus jubilantly danced through the pillars, taking it all in. “Man, you hear about it, you dream about the day you might get to see it, but it’s even better than I imagined!” Elysia blinked. “What is Carhenge?” “Don’t you get it?” said Ferbus, the grin still on his face. “It’s like Stonehenge.” He pointed. “But with cars.” The Juniors stared at him. Bang coughed. “Well,” said Uncle Mort after a moment, “as riveting as”—he consulted his atlas—“rural Nebraska is, it’s probably best that we keep moving.” Ferbus’s face fell. “But the gift shop.” Uncle Mort rubbed his temples. “Tell you what, next time we’re being chased by a murderous criminal, I’ll try to schedule in a little more time for sightseeing.” He formed the Juniors back into a circle. “Let’s not assign a designated driver this time. We’ll scythe, and whoever thinks of something first, somewhere farther east—that’s where we’ll go. Ready?” *** This time around they were greeted by the stoic faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, all wearing caps of snow. “Ooh, Mount Rushmore,” Ferbus said bitterly. “Because dead presidents are so much more fascinating than the subtle, delicate art of automotive sculpture.” “East!” Uncle Mort said, exasperated. “Not north!

Diablos: the name given to the igniting of, and ignited, farts. Trevor Hickey is the undisputed master of this arcane and perilous art. The stakes could not be higher. Get the timing even slightly wrong and there will be consequences far more serious than singed trousers; the word backdraught clamours unspoken at the back of every spectator’s mind. Total silence now as, with an almost imperceptible tremble (entirely artificial, ‘just part of the show’ as Trevor puts it) his hand brings the match between his legs and – foom! a sound like the fabric of the universe being ripped in two, counterpointed by its opposite, a collective intake of breath, as from Trevor’s bottom proceeds a magnificent plume of flame – jetting out it’s got to be nearly three feet, they tell each other afterwards, a cold and beautiful purple-blue enchantment that for an instant bathes the locker room in unearthly light. No one knows quite what Trevor Hickey’s diet is, or his exercise regime; if you ask him about it, he will simply say that he has a gift, and having witnessed it, you would be hard-pressed to argue, although why God should have given him this gift in particular is less easy to say. But then, strange talents abound in the fourteen-year-old confraternity. As well as Trevor Hickey, ‘The Duke of Diablos’, you have people like Rory ‘Pins’ Moran, who on one occasion had fifty-eight pins piercing the epidermis of his left hand; GP O’Sullivan, able to simulate the noises of cans opening, mobile phones bleeping, pneumatic doors, etc., at least as well as the guy in Police Academy; Henry Lafayette, who is double-jointed and famously escaped from a box of jockstraps after being locked inside it by Lionel. These boys’ abilities are regarded quite as highly by their peers as the more conventional athletic and sporting kinds, as is any claim to physical freakishness, such as waggling ears (Mitchell Gogan), unusually high mucous production (Hector ‘Hectoplasm’ O’Looney), notable ugliness (Damien Lawlor) and inexplicably slimy, greenish hair (Vince Bailey). Fame in the second year is a surprisingly broad church; among the two-hundred-plus boys, there is scarcely anyone who does not have some ability or idiosyncrasy or weird body condition for which he is celebrated. As with so many things at this particular point in their lives, though, that situation is changing by the day. School, with its endless emphasis on conformity, careers, the Future, may be partly to blame, but the key to the shift in attitudes is, without a doubt, girls. Until recently the opinion of girls was of little consequence; now – overnight, almost – it is paramount; and girls have quite different, some would go so far as to say deeply conservative, criteria with regard to what constitutes a gift. They do not care how many golf balls you can fit in your mouth; they are unmoved by third nipples; they do not, most of them, consider mastery of Diablos to be a feather in your cap – even when you explain to them how dangerous it is, even when you offer to teach them how to do it themselves, an offer you have never extended to any of your classmates, who would actually pay big money for this expertise, or you could even call it lore – wait, come back!

Her people. Her people, waiting for ten years, but no longer. She could see the snow-capped Staghorns, the wild tangle of Oakwald at their feet, and… and Orynth, that city of light and learning, once a pillar of strength—and her home. It would be both again. She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness. She was not afraid. She would remake the world—remake it for them, those she had loved with this glorious, burning heart; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the Afterworld, she would not be ashamed. She would build it for her people, who had survived this long, and whom she would not abandon. She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath. She was their queen, and she could offer them nothing less. Celaena reached across the earth between them and brushed her fingers against Aelin’s. And arose.

She could see the snow-capped Staghorns, the wild tangle of Oakwald at their feet, and … and Orynth, that city of light and learning, once a pillar of strength—and her home. It would be both again. She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness. She was not afraid.

Don't open the door or talk to strangers," "Unless they're selling something.Then allow them to disclose what they are selling and see if its something which might be useful. First say a 'No' upfront, that's taking charge of the situation from beginning. Make them explain, do not react at all till they finish, but listen carefully. Now pretend that hypothetically you might like it but not sure if it can be beneficial to you in this life. Without delay, even the sound of interest in another life work as a charge-up for salespeople, they will continue product explanation with enhanced passion. Even so, don't open-up your cards, just restart the game, ask about the first thing they explained than the second. Steer them around in circles by submitting the similar question in altered manner. Its always good to exhaust your opponent, make them so tired mentally that they wont be able to hide any fact or benefit. Once you see them fatigued start bargaining about the cost, remember instantly they either want to run away or slap you hard, but...Its a big but...The targets on their head will not allow them that option so they will listen to every demand, call their boss and offer you the second most reasonable price... Do not say yes yet...Tell them you will buy it but still need some time to think...They are at present in a flightless state, so they will promptly offer you the most competitive price possible and secure the deal. Although you can still ask for a corporate goody like a calendar, diary, pen T-shirt or a cap for me, now they might or might not possess anything big, but even a free pencil is a bonus. Our standards aren't that high when it comes to a gift.

If you think you cannot do it, you will not do it. Channel your thinking caps on the possibilities. At no point should you cease believing in your God-given abilities. If you believe in a particular vision, think about it, focus on it, and work on it until you succeed. Always keep your attention fixed on the potential of winning.

Thomas hitched his pants to keep the ironing crisp, and sat. Rose put creases in his shirtsleeves, too. Used starch. Even in dull clay-green work clothes, he looked respectable. His collar never flopped. But he wanted to flop. The chair was padded, comfortable. Too comfortable. Thomas opened his thermos. It was a top-of-the-line Stanley, a gift from his oldest daughters. They had given him this thermos to celebrate his salaried position. He poured a measure of black coffee into the steel cover that was also a cup. The warm metal, the gentle ridges, the rounded feminine base of the cap, were pleasant to hold. He allowed his eyelids a long and luxurious blink each time he drank. Nearly slipped over the edge. Jerked awake. Fiercely commanded the dregs in the cup to do their work

the moment, and she texted back that she was at the Hôtel du Cap with two of her daughters. He responded immediately, said he was on his boat in St. Jean Cap Ferrat, and was heading in her direction that afternoon. Would she and her daughters like to have dinner on his yacht? He said he would be honored, and Véronique was amused. She thought it would be fun for the girls to meet him. And she imagined that seeing his boat would be entertaining for them, too. She knew he had several, and it would be nice to see him. She texted back that they would be delighted, and he answered that his tender would pick them up at eight o’clock at the dock at Eden Roc. She told the girls about it when they got back from swimming. “Nikolai who?” Juliette asked with a puzzled expression. She had never heard of him, and couldn’t imagine how her mother knew him. “You know how I hate boats, Mom. They always make me sick.” “I have a feeling his is big enough that you won’t get seasick. Let’s do it.” She hadn’t seen him since they’d had dinner on the terrace of his suite in Rome, when he’d nearly killed her

I gave you wings to fly looming high and easy over unboarded sea and the entire earth. At every meal and banquet you will be present on the lips of guests. Graceful young men will sing of you in limpid lovely notes to the clean piping of the flutes. When you go under the dark vaults of earth to the mournful chambers of sad Hell, even when you lie dead you will not lose your glory. Your name will be recalled among men always, Kyrnos. You will wheel high over the mainland and Greek islands and cross the unharvested sea pulsing with fish, not by horse but carried to those who love you in the gifts of Muses capped in violet flowers. You will be like a song to the living as long as there is sun, earth. Yet you ignore me and trick me as if I were a child.

One winter in Manila in the mid-1930s, Wylie walked into the wardroom of his ship, the heavy cruiser Augusta (Captain Chester W. Nimitz commanding), and encountered a “fist-banging argument” between two of the ship’s up-and-coming young officers. At issue was what it took to become skilled at rifle or pistol marksmanship. One officer, Lloyd Mustin, said that only someone born with a special gift could learn to do it well. The other, a marine named Lewis B. Puller, said, “I can take any dumb son of a bitch and teach him to shoot.” Mustin would go on to become one of the Navy’s pioneers in radar-controlled gunnery. Puller would ascend to general, the most decorated U.S. Marine in history. Gesturing to Wylie standing in the doorway, Chesty Puller declared, “I can even teach him.” A ten-dollar bet ensued. The next time the Augusta’s marine detachment found time to do their annual qualifications at the rifle range, Wylie was Puller’s special guest. And by the end of the experiment, he was the proud owner of a Marine medal designating him an expert rifleman. The experience helped Wylie understand both native gifts and teachable skills and predisposed him to work with the rural kids under him. Now he could smile when the sighting of an aircraft approaching at a distant but undetermined range came through the Fletcher’s bridge phones as, “Hey, Cap’n, here’s another one of them thar aero-planes, but don’t you fret none. She’s a fur piece yet.” Wylie was a good enough leader to appreciate what the recruits from the countryside brought to the game. “They were highly motivated,” he said. “They just came to fight.

I recently read about a man who kept a Thanksgiving journal for his wife. What a great idea. So starting that day, I kept a Thanksgiving journal for Margaret. I paid attention to the things my wife was doing that touched my heart. I also recorded the attributes, characteristics, and qualities I appreciated in her, writing them down secretly every day. By the end of that year, I’d filled an entire journal. When the following Thanksgiving rolled around, I surprised her by giving her the journal. It made her cry, and she told me it was the best gift she’d ever received. What was most interesting is that the whole process affected me even more than it did her. Creating the journal prompted me to look for all the positive things I could find in my wife, which directed my focus away from anything negative. It was a great win for both of us.

Good women wear the cap of motherhood very well. Whether they have given birth, or not it does not matter. Good mothers make life so great.

What in the world do you think you’re doing?” he roars. “Tess just dream-hopped to California.” More lights go on in the hallway. Doors open. “Cap, I’m telling you. She just brought me with her to freaking California.” “What?” Only it’s not Cap’s voice responding to Link’s excited declaration. I yank my hand away from Link’s and turn around. But it’s too late. Luka already saw. “You’re visiting Link in your dreams?” “Luka …” He doesn’t wait for an explanation. Luka turns around and walks away.

On a bleak winter day, Dostoyevsky and his fellow prisoners were marched through the snow in front of the firing squad. As a military official shouted out the death sentences, a priest led each man to a platform, giving him an opportunity to kiss the cross the priest carried. Three of the prisoners were then marched forward and tied to a stake. Dostoyevsky looked on, realizing he would be next in line. He watched the soldiers pull the men’s caps down over their eyes. He felt revulsion in his stomach as the firing squad lifted their rifles, adjusted their aim, and stood ready to pull the triggers. Out of suffering and defeat often comes victory. Frozen in suspense, Dostoyevsky waited for what seemed like a lifetime. Then he heard the drums start up again. But they were beating retreat! He watched, stunned, as the firing squad lowered their rifles and the soldiers removed the prisoners’ caps from their eyes. Their lives—and his—would be spared.2 Immediately after this incident, Dostoyevsky wrote a letter to his brother about the change the experience had worked in him: “When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul—then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift. … Now, in changing my life, I am reborn in a new form. Brother! I swear that I will not lose hope and will keep my soul and heart pure. I will be reborn for the better. That’s all my hope, all my consolation!

Forgiveness is a gift I’ll likely never be able to give Conroy, but I pray every time I hit my knees for God to give me the strength to do so.

a pilot named Disco sat on the front row in the little wood-frame church in St. Marys, Georgia, while I stood at the altar for my ordination ceremony, officially making me a Baptist minister. Although having those five men sitting on that old wooden pew doesn’t sound like much to the rest of the world, to me, it was a pivotal moment in my life. Those five men had become the family I yearned for, prayed for, and believed I would never have. They showed me a kind of love that only men of God have to give. They took a broken, defeated man without a home and full of anger, and gave me a family—a family full of the gift of the Spirit, which, as our Bible teaches us, is “Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,