Del Close Quotes

Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise. No one compares to you, but there's no you, except in my dreams tonight

Everytime I close my eyes it's like a dark paradise. No one compares to you, I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side.

He gave her a quick, casual kiss on the cheek first. Then came the hug, and it was the hug that always made Laurel’s heart mush. Serious grip, cheek to the hair, eyes closed, just a little sway. Del’s hugs mattered, she thought, and made him impossible to resist.

Mortals don't understand life is not a book you close only after you read the last page. There is no last page in the Book of Life, for the last one is always the first page of another story.

An absence of fear, Elisa realizes, can be mistaken for happiness, but it isn’t the same thing. Not even close.

Hey, Lauren?” he called, and she stopped so abruptly her bag slid off her shoulder. She caught it at the last second and turned, her expression taken aback. Del smirked. “Don’t be so surprised that I know your name. You’re not as invisible as you think you are.” She closed her mouth, looking at him. “I’m not gonna stop calling you Red, though” he added casually.

close your eyes and feel where you hold your attention if it’s in the back of your eyes walk it down to your heart center and make that the new place from which your thoughts enter

The more you know, the more you can make fun of.

I closed my eyes, starting to spin as Lana Del Rey’s “Dark Paradise” drifted out of the ballroom through the open window, and I swept my leg,

Treat your audience like poets and geniuses and that's what they'll become.

And when I am in a new place, because I see everything, it is like when a computer is doing too many things at the same time and the central processor unit is blocked up and there isn't any space left to think about other things. And when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is even harder because people are not like cows and flowers and grass and they can talk to you and do things that you don't expect, so you have to notice everything that is in the place, and also you have to notice things that might happen as well. And sometimes when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is like a computer crashing and I have to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and shutting down programs and turning the computer off and rebooting so that I can remember what I am doing and where I am meant to be going.

The only piece of home Ofelia had been able to take with her were some of her books. She closed her fingers firmly around the one on her lap, caressing the cover. When she opened the book, the white pages were so bright against the shadows that filled the forest and the words they offered granted shelter and comfort. The letters were like footprints in the snow, a wide white landscape untouched by pain, unharmed by memories too dark to keep, too sweet to let go of.

Outside the Bar Del Prado, night was coming on like a hopeless, drunken come-on, tequila on its breath, red neon signs and, outside the shops, strings of colored Christmas lights hung from the eaves like the sad, close-lipped smiles of boys who would lure you in with their loneliness, that melancholia you'd try and try to fix.

Victor felt relieved: if one lives long enough, circles close. The Ofelia del Solar circle closed neatly for him in that Athenaeum café, without leaving any ashes.

Follow the fear.

It was an unexpected kiss and terribly poignant, because in it there wasn't a promise of love but a farewell. Morwen felt the salty tears slide down the sides of the cheeks, while her lips moved in unison with those of Galadir. The Prince was holding her close, stroking her black hair. He wanted to keep her for life. He wished that moment would last forever, but it was too late.

I moved to Chicago in 1992 to study improv and it was everything I wanted it to be. It was like a cult. People ate, slept, and definitely drank improv. They worked at crappy day jobs just to hand over their money for improv classes. Eager young people in khakis and polo shirts were willing to do whatever teachers like Del Close and Martin de Maat told them to. In retrospect, it may actually have been a cult.

Failures of the caregiving motivation can trigger powerful negative emotions, including sadness and guilt. Like attachment, caregiving is a vital component of close relationships between adults, particularly intimate friends and romantic partners.

landowner of those parts. An archway to one side leads to a church, the Madonna del Carmine—Our Lady of Mount Carmine. Narrow stone steps run up the hillside, flanked by closely clustered two-story stone houses with red-tile roofs. For centuries, the paesani of Roseto

Her hands clutched at his upper arms. “Y-you make me feel…” He glanced up at her, saw the way she was biting her lower lip and the tortured frown between her closed eyes. “What do I make you feel, honey?” he prompted in a low voice, unable to look away from her beautiful face, and he rubbed the heel of his palm against the hard bud of her clitoris. Her body went wire taut, arching like a hunter’s bow as she gasped for him. “Unbalanced.

When she tries to speak of Machismo, she is immediately put down and told "We know all about it, there are many many books written on the subject." She receives nothing but censorship again. She tries so hard to say, "Yes, there is much on Machismo, but can't you Machos look at the women and children who are the VICTIMS of your Machismo?" She tries so much to speak up and instead finds herself speaking to deaf ears and a completely closed mind.

Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you may in the gentle breezes of summer. To-morrow a ruthless hand will close around your throats. You will be wrenched, torn asunder limb by limb, and borne away from your quiet homes. The wretch, she may be passing fair. She may say how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be kindness?

NEAR THE BASILICA OF ST. ANTHONY Antica Trattoria dei Paccagnella, the most serious restaurant near the basilica, serves up nicely presented, seasonal local dishes with modern flair and an impressive attention to ingredients. The place has friendly service, modern art on the walls, and no pretense. It’s thoughtfully run by two brothers, Raffaele and Cesare, who happily explain why they are so excited about local hens (€9-12 pastas, €14-18 secondi, Mon 19:00-22:00, Tue-Sat 12:00-14:00 & 19:00-22:00, closed Sun, Via del Santo 113, tel. 049-875-0549). Pizzeria Pago Pago dishes up wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas (a local favorite) and daily specials depending on what’s in season. Get there early for dinner or wait (€5-8 pizzas, €9 salads, Wed-Mon 12:00-14:00 & 19:00-24:00, closed Tue; 2 blocks from Basilica

HAVE YOU SEEN ME? The last count Jim had heard was 190 missing kids. The number would have seemed like fantasy if not for the evidence he saw everywhere: a higher fence around the school, larger numbers of parents patrolling the playgrounds, the police crackdown on kids being on the streets after dark. It was unusual that Jim and Jack would be allowed to be out on their bikes this close to sundown, but it was Jack's birthday and their parents couldn't say no.... Jim squinted into the sun. He could make out Jack pedaling so fast that birds threw themselves out of the way not land until they had gone south for the winter. Jack whooped and dry leaves danced in the Sportcrest's wake. In just a few seconds, Jack would pass under the Holland Transit Bridge, a monolith of concrete and steel.... He had to catch up to his brother. When they got home, he wanted it to be as equals... The training wheels protested - SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK! - but he kept on cycling his legs, willing them to be longer and stronger. When he looked up again, Jack was gone. Jim could see the Sportcrest lying beneath the bridge, silhouetted by the falling sun, it's handlebars bent and the front wheel still spinning.

En mis Estudios galileanos he tratado de definir los patrones estructurales de la vieja y de la nueva visión del mundo, intentando determinar los cambios alumbrados por la revolución del siglo XVII. Me parecía que se podían reducir a dos acciones fundamentales e ínti­mamente relacionadas, que caracterizaba como la destruc­ción del cosmos y la geometrización del espacio; es decir, la sustitución de la concepción del mundo como un todo finito y bien ordenado, en el que la estructura espacial incorporaba una jerarquía de perfección y valor, por la de un universo indefinido o aun infinito que ya no estaba unido por subor­dinación natural, sino que se unificaba tan sólo mediante la identidad de sus leyes y componentes últimos y básicos. La segunda sustitución es la de la concepción aristotélica del espacio (un conjunto diferenciado de lugares intramundanos) por la de la geometría euclídea (una extensión esencial­ mente infinita y homogénea) que, a partir de entonces, pasa a considerarse idéntica al espacio real del mundo. Como es obvio, el cambio espiritual que estoy describiendo no se pro­dujo mediante una mutación repentina. También las revolu­ciones exigen tiempo para realizarse; también las revolucio­nes poseen historia. Así, las esferas celestes que ceñían el mundo, manteniéndolo unido, no desaparecieron de un golpe con una poderosa explosión; la burbuja del mundo creció y se hinchó antes de estallar, confundiéndose con el espacio que la rodeaba.

SCULLEY. Pepsi executive recruited by Jobs in 1983 to be Apple’s CEO, clashed with and ousted Jobs in 1985. JOANNE SCHIEBLE JANDALI SIMPSON. Wisconsin-born biological mother of Steve Jobs, whom she put up for adoption, and Mona Simpson, whom she raised. MONA SIMPSON. Biological full sister of Jobs; they discovered their relationship in 1986 and became close. She wrote novels loosely based on her mother Joanne (Anywhere but Here), Jobs and his daughter Lisa (A Regular Guy), and her father Abdulfattah Jandali (The Lost Father). ALVY RAY SMITH. A cofounder of Pixar who clashed with Jobs. BURRELL SMITH. Brilliant, troubled hardware designer on the original Mac team, afflicted with schizophrenia in the 1990s. AVADIS “AVIE” TEVANIAN. Worked with Jobs and Rubinstein at NeXT, became chief software engineer at Apple in 1997. JAMES VINCENT. A music-loving Brit, the younger partner with Lee Clow and Duncan Milner at the ad agency Apple hired. RON WAYNE. Met Jobs at Atari, became first partner with Jobs and Wozniak at fledgling Apple, but unwisely decided to forgo his equity stake. STEPHEN WOZNIAK. The star electronics geek at Homestead High; Jobs figured out how to package and market his amazing circuit boards and became his partner in founding Apple. DEL YOCAM. Early Apple employee who became the General Manager of the Apple II Group and later Apple’s Chief Operating Officer. INTRODUCTION How This Book Came to Be In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs. He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I’d worked. But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn’t heard from him much. We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado. He’d be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted instead to take a walk so that we could talk. That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet

Steve Jobs knew from an early age that he was adopted. “My parents were very open with me about that,” he recalled. He had a vivid memory of sitting on the lawn of his house, when he was six or seven years old, telling the girl who lived across the street. “So does that mean your real parents didn’t want you?” the girl asked. “Lightning bolts went off in my head,” according to Jobs. “I remember running into the house, crying. And my parents said, ‘No, you have to understand.’ They were very serious and looked me straight in the eye. They said, ‘We specifically picked you out.’ Both of my parents said that and repeated it slowly for me. And they put an emphasis on every word in that sentence.” Abandoned. Chosen. Special. Those concepts became part of who Jobs was and how he regarded himself. His closest friends think that the knowledge that he was given up at birth left some scars. “I think his desire for complete control of whatever he makes derives directly from his personality and the fact that he was abandoned at birth,” said one longtime colleague, Del Yocam. “He wants to control his environment, and he sees the product as an extension of himself.” Greg Calhoun, who became close to Jobs right after college, saw another effect. “Steve talked to me a lot about being abandoned and the pain that caused,” he said. “It made him independent. He followed the beat of a different drummer, and that came from being in a different world than he was born into.” Later in life, when he was the same age his biological father had been when he abandoned him, Jobs would father and abandon a child of his own. (He eventually took responsibility for her.) Chrisann Brennan, the mother of that child, said that being put up for adoption left Jobs “full of broken glass,” and it helps to explain some of his behavior. “He who is abandoned is an abandoner,” she said. Andy Hertzfeld, who worked with Jobs at Apple in the early 1980s, is among the few who remained close to both Brennan and Jobs. “The key question about Steve is why he can’t control himself at times from being so reflexively cruel and harmful to some people,” he said. “That goes back to being abandoned at birth. The real underlying problem was the theme of abandonment in Steve’s life.” Jobs dismissed this. “There’s some notion that because I was abandoned, I worked very hard so I could do well and make my parents wish they had me back, or some such nonsense, but that’s ridiculous,” he insisted. “Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent, but I have never felt abandoned. I’ve always felt special. My parents made me feel special.” He would later bristle whenever anyone referred to Paul and Clara Jobs as his “adoptive” parents or implied that they were not his “real” parents. “They were my parents 1000%,” he said. When speaking about his biological parents, on the other hand, he was curt: “They were my sperm and egg bank. That’s not harsh, it’s just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more.

So close, so close at hand, so damn beautiful. Galadir breathed deeply of the sweet smell of her hair and stroked her cheek. Her skin was warm. No, it was boiling and slowly he withdrew his hand, trying to hide the burning sensation he felt. She stared at him with a look that let him out of breath. «I don't like women who want to lead, as you are.»

«I... I don't know. I heard a lock that opened... and then screams very close to me. I heard them behind the door and so... I was scared. I don't know what happened. I wanted they stop screaming... Then I felt a sharp pain in the head and suddenly... I didn't heard them anymore.»

«No, please!» she screamed desperate. One of the guys that were blocking her, pulled her by the hair. «Shut up, girl!» The old man stuck the knife and she closed her eyes, screaming.

«Who are you?» whispered the Prince, trying to support those eyes. «Surely you have something special in addition to beauty,» continued she. Galadir closed his eyes, trying to regulate the breath. «Who are you?» «And I can not wait to find out what it is,» whispered the woman with a persuasive tone.

I thought briefly about rising, then considered the state of head and belly and decided staying close to the ground in an attitude of prayer, regardless of true intention, was a posture worth practicing.

Hi ha un àngel sense cel al fons d'aquest mirall amb els llavis pintats de sol que va a la posta. Du un estigma a la pell que demana resposta i uns ulls esbatanats que fan d'amagatall a l'aiguat dels torrents. Porta el ròssec de l'astre dels boscos i dels anys. I un deix de fulles mortes. Com en país estrany, closes totes les portes, erra obstinadament, com si seguís un rastre. Uns senyals que no hi són, que, amb cendra de follia i amb alfabets prestats inventem per demà. El nuvolar més fosc es congria amb nosaltres, La pluja esborrarà tots els camins del sia. Pastarem somnis vells, sota un cel de lilà, amb el fang sense ahir, com si fossin uns altres...

Celia laughed. “You’re like a seventeen-year-old girl on a prom date. Color is a fact of life, Del. The people who say they don’t see color, or race, are the people who do. We see good-looking people and funny people, obnoxious people. Why shouldn’t we see something so obvious as color?

We may experience an almost telepathic degree of understanding. In addition to this emotional closeness, many of us experience a degree of physical closeness with our pets that goes well beyond what we share with most of the people in our lives.

The extraordinary emotional and physical closeness that we enjoy with our pets creates a rare degree of intimacy. Also, our relationship with a pet stands alone in its simplicity. We never suffer unfaithfulness, manipulation, or major conflict. There were no arguments, periods of estrangements, and dramatic reconciliations with your deceased pet. The relationship was consistent, predictable, and reliable to a degree rarely achieved in our relationships with other people. When you lose

The extraordinary emotional and physical closeness that we enjoy with our pets creates a rare degree of intimacy. Also, our relationship with a pet stands alone in its simplicity. We never suffer unfaithfulness, manipulation, or major conflict. There were no arguments, periods of estrangements, and dramatic reconciliations with your deceased pet. The relationship was consistent, predictable, and reliable to a degree rarely achieved in our relationships with other people.

He vaguely remembered taking her hand, and leading her across the lounge to the elevators. But then… Huh. Had he imagined the sinful, smoking hot kiss they’d shared once the doors slid closed? He could almost feel the palm of his hand inching up her silky smooth thigh while she dug her nails into his scalp.

Fet was paying close attention to the old man. “You know what?” he said. “Twice when you were just talking, I heard you say the word ‘vampire.’” Setrakian looked at him evenly. “That you did.” After

The latter had developed into as close a friend as Arun had these days, except for Xin of course, filling the gap that Hortez’s death and Springer’s estrangement had created, but Del-Marie had stayed behind to negotiate with the natives on Tallerman-3 after the Legion had swept the New Empire forces from the system.

Del didn’t know, but in the end, he didn’t care about thin lines and all that she-said, he-said stuff.

Del tried to concentrate on the Celtics and Sixers, and, surprising himself, he could. Funny how life worked.

Optimism is radical. It is the hard choice, the brave choice. And it is, it seems to me, most needed now, in the face of despair—just as a car is most useful when you have a distance to close. Otherwise it is a large, unmovable object parked in the garage. These days, the safest way for someone to appear intelligent is being skeptical by default. We seem sophisticated when we say “we don’t believe” and disingenuous when we say “we do.” History and fable have both proven that nothing is ever entirely lost. David can take Goliath. A beach in Normandy can turn the tide of war. Bravery can topple the powerful. These facts are often seen as exceptional, but they are not. Every day, we all become the balance of our choices—choices between love and fear, belief or despair. No hope is ever too small.

Have you ever dreamed that you were running from something? You can feel it getting closer so you keep running. It gets so close to you that you think it will catch you. But you wake up. You wake up and you can’t remember what you were running from. I can’t wake up.

I’m sorry he hurt you.” he inches close to me, backing me through the open door way until he’s able to shut the door behind us. “But I don’t mind being here for you.” he raises one hand to softly caress my cheek.  “Gio,” my voice comes out strained.  “Annie.” he looks down and then lifts his eyes to meet mine. “I want to kiss you.” His breath touches my neck and I relish the feelings. He’s so fucking close to me.  “Then kiss me.

All my friends tell me I should move on I'm lying in the ocean, singing your song Ahh That's how you sang it Loving you forever can't be wrong Even though you're not here, won't move on Ahh That's how we played it And there's no remedy for memory, your face is like a melody It won't leave my head Your soul is haunting me and telling me that everything is fine But I wish I was dead (dead, like you) Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side All my friends ask me why I stay strong Tell 'em when you find true love, it lives on Ahh That's why I stay here And there's no remedy for memory, your face is like a melody It won't leave my head Your soul is haunting me and telling me that everything is fine But I wish I was dead (dead, like you) Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you But there's no you, except in my dreams tonight Oh-oh-oh-oh-hah-hah-hah-hah I don't want to wake up from this tonight Oh-oh-oh-oh-hah-hah-hah-hah I don't want to wake up from this tonight There's no relief, I see you in my sleep And everybody's rushing me, but I can feel you touching me There's no release, I feel you in my dreams Telling me I'm fine Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you I'm scared that you won't be waiting on the other side Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise No one compares to you But there's no you, except in my dreams tonight Oh-oh-oh-oh-hah-hah-hah-hah I don't want to wake up from this tonight Oh-oh-oh-oh-hah-hah-hah-hah I don't want to wake up from this tonight "Dark Paradise

Roseto Valfortore lies one hundred miles southeast of Rome in the Apennine foothills of the Italian province of Foggia. In the style of medieval villages, the town is organized around a large central square. Facing the square is the Palazzo Marchesale, the palace of the Saggese family, once the great landowner of those parts. An archway to one side leads to a church, the Madonna del Carmine—Our Lady of Mount Carmine. Narrow stone steps run up the hillside, flanked by closely clustered two-story stone houses with red-tile roofs.

But finally I have no reason for tears not tonight at 7:27 first time in months i feel close to heaven

I’m no one’s prize. I’m the curse that slowly drains the life of those who come too close,

The Lineup took its listeners behind the scenes of a police headquarters “where under the cold, glaring lights pass the innocent, the vagrant, the thief, the murderer.” The police lineup opened and closed each broadcast: Sgt. Grebb would be heard instructing the prisoners and thus setting up how the case was investigated and solved. Dragnet was the trendsetter in police drama, and realism was what each new show was striving for. Grebb was quick-tempered and often bored: Lt. Guthrie was soft-spoken and calm. There were few heroics, said Newsweek: “Everything they do is just a job.” Director del Valle and scripter Edwards cruised with police and watched many lineups. Del Valle also read about a dozen newspapers a day and freely adapted truth to fiction.

I’m tired of being the funniest person in the room.

I turned to Kristen. “We should go home. Get some sleep.” We were the last two left in the waiting room, and weariness started to take me down. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I put my hands on her arms. “There’s nothing else you can do for Sloan at the moment, and sleeping in a chair isn’t going to help matters. He’s stable. Let’s go home.” She folded herself into my chest, and I tucked her head under my chin and closed my eyes, wrapping her in my arms. I’d never seen her this vulnerable. Her guard was totally down, and it made me feel protective over her. “Come on.” I kissed her forehead, and she closed her eyes and leaned into it. “I’ll drive.” On the way home she pulled her legs up to her chest and leaned against the door of the car. I held her hand. We stopped at Del Taco, grabbed food, and ate while we drove. Both of us just wanted to get in bed. I don’t think either of us had slept the night before because of our fight, and we were both spent. When we got to her house, we brushed our teeth together and went right to sleep without talking. She curled up against me, and I held her to me all night.

Elise was quiet and her features tight, so I held her close and whispered a promise in her ear. “Ti darò la sua morte, mio unico vero amore. E ogni stella del cielo verrà a vederlo soffrire per mano tua.” I will deliver his death to you, my one true love. And every star in the sky will come to watch him suffer at your hands.

On several occasions, whether the scuttling of the liturgy of the dead or even that incredible enterprise to expurgate the Psalms for use in the Divine Office,102 Bugnini ran into an opposition that was not only massive but also, one might say, close to unanimous. In such cases, he didn’t hesitate to say: “But the Pope wills it!” After that, of course, there was no question of discussing the matter any further. Yet, one day when he had made use of that argument I had a lunch appointment with my friend Msgr. Del Gallo, who as privy Chamberlain had a flat right above the papal apartments at the time.103 As I was coming back down—after the siesta, of course—and came out of the lift onto the Cortile San Damaso,104 Bugnini in person was emerging from the staircase on his way in from the Bronze Gate. At the sight of me, he didn’t just turn pale: he was visibly aghast. I straightaway understood that, knowing me to be notus pontifici,105 he supposed I had just been with the pope. But in my innocence I simply could not guess why he would be so terrorized at the idea that I might have had an interview with the pope regarding our affairs. I would be given the answer, though weeks later, by Paul VI himself. As he was discussing our famous work with me, work which he had finally ratified without being much more satisfied with it than I was, he said to me: “Now why did you do [x] in the reform?” At this point, I must confess that I no longer recall specifically which of the details I have already mentioned was bothering him.106 Naturally, I answered: “Why, simply because Bugnini had assured us that you absolutely wished it.” His reaction was instantaneous: “Can this be? He told me himself that you were unanimous on this!

Color is a fact of life, Del. The people who say they don’t see color, or race, are the people who do. We see good-looking people and funny people, obnoxious people. Why shouldn’t we see something so obvious as color?

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Every time I close my eyes, it's like a dark paradise...

The general idea that psychopathy represents a potentially adaptive strategy is consistent with the finding that even violent psychopaths who harm nonrelatives tend to spare closely related individuals, such as their own parents and children.

Morality is a closely knit garment that binds tightly when it binds at all, but the vastnesses that lie between the stars are prone to unraveling it, to plucking it apart into so many loose threads, each brightly colored, but forming no discernible pattern.

I close the mobile phone ande open the book, and books never lose their charge, books always function, books are always ready to be read ...Unplugged machines that connect instantaneously to our brains and possess and invade us. Maybe, now that I think of it, books are extraterrestrial organisms. Beings that abduct us and take us to other worlds, better worlds, worlds much better written than our own.

Spaghetti del mare," she said, coming through the door, "from the sea." In the large, wide blue bowl, swirls of thin noodles wove their way between dark black shells and bits of red tomato. "Breathe first," Charlie told him, "eyes closed." The steam rose off the pasta like ocean turned into air. "Clams, mussels," Tom said, "garlic, of course, and tomatoes. Red pepper flakes. Butter, wine, oil." "One more," she coaxed. He leaned in- smelled hillsides in the sun, hot ground, stone walls. "Oregano," he said, opening his eyes. Charlie smiled and handed him a forkful of pasta. After the sweetness of the melon, the flavor was full of red bursts and spikes of hot pepper shooting across his tongue, underneath, like a steadying hand, a salty cushion of clam, the soft velvet of oregano, and pasta warm as beach sand.

Until Garibaldi landed in 1860 and the unification of Italy that followed meant that the church’s land was confiscated and many convents were forced to close down, the sisters were the powerhouses of pastry and confectionery. In aristocratic families with many daughters, if only one dowry could be afforded, the other daughters would be sent to the convent, and money would be given to the order to keep them in quiet luxury. But they also needed an occupation, so the tradition of making pastry to give away to the people on saints’ days and festivals grew up. There was a great competitiveness between the convents, each of which had their own speciality, such as virgin cakes, made in the shape of breasts. So hot was the competition, that as far back as 1575 it is said that the diocese of Mazara del Vallo had to prohibit the making of cassata by the nuns during Holy Week because they were doing more baking than praying!

On the night of November 24, 1956, the Granma slipped her moorings with Castro’s guerrillas aboard, known as “los expedicionarios del yate Granma,” and left from Tuxpan, Veracruz, setting a course across the Yucatán Channel for southeastern Cuba. The 1,200-mile distance between Mexico and their landing point in southeastern Cuba was difficult and included 135 miles of open water and cross currents between Cape Catoche in Mexico and Cape San Antonio in Cuba. They had to stay far enough off the southern coast of Cuba to remain undetected. The overcrowded small vessel leaked, forcing everyone to take turns bailing water out of her, and at one point they lost a man overboard, which further delayed them. In all, the entire five-day trip ultimately lasted seven days. Their destination was a playa, beach, near Niquero in the Oriente Province, close to where José Martí landed 61 years prior, during the War of Independence. However, on December 2, 1956, when the Granma finally arrived at its destination, it smashed into a mangrove swamp crawling with fiddler crabs, near Los Colorados beach. They were well south of where they were supposed to meet up with 50 supporters. Having lost their element of surprise, they were left exposed and vulnerable. After the revolution the Granma was moved to Havana and is now on display in a protected glass enclosure at the Granma Memorial, near the Museum of the Revolution. The official newspaper in Cuba is also called the Granma. Note: Ships and boats as well as newspapers and other publications are italicized whereas memorials are not!

Sei più bella del sole,” I breathed in awe. “You look like the angel you are, Elise,” Gabriel said. “Fuck me on a toadstool,” Leon sighed. “You look gorgeous, little monster.” Ryder made a strained noise, sweeping a hand over his closely cropped hair.