Eight Birthday Quotes

When's your birthday?" I was taken aback by the question. "I don't like presents,"I said quickly, in case he got any ideas. "Who said anything about presents? I'm just asking for your date of birth." "Thirtieth of February," I said, throwing out the first date that came to mind. Xavier raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that?" I panicked. What had I said wrong? I ran through the months in my head and realised my mistake. OOPS--there were only twenty-eight days in February! "I mean thirtieth of April," I corrected and grinned sheepishly. Xavier laughed. "You're the first person I've ever known to forget her own birthday.

What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.

Are you sure you’re not too tired?” Taylor taunted, lacing her fingers through his hair and pulling him between her legs. “Although you do seem to have a lot of energy for a thirty-nine-year-old.” Jason grabbed her by the back of the neck, pulling her mouth to his. “Thirty-eight, smart-ass. I have a December birthday.

What the hell were you doing with five thousand dollars on you?" "Eight, actually. I had grand plans for today. Hookers and blow aren't cheap, but I suppose animal sacrifice will have to do. Happy birthday.

I invited a few people to help celebrate your birthday," Cameron said sheepishly. She threw up her hands. "Surprise." "We sort of come with the package," Collin explained. "Think of it as a collective gift from all of us to you: five bona fide annoying and overly intrusive new best friends." "It's the gift that keeps on giving," Wilkins said. Jack grinned. "I'm touched. Really. And since it appears I'm going to be moving in, let me be the first to say that all of you are always welcome at my and Cameron's house. Subject to a minimum of forty-eight hours prior notification.

Thirty- eight years old and he was finished. He sipped at the coffee and remembered where he had gone wrong -- or right. He'd simply gotten tired -- of the insurance game, of the small offices and high glass partitions, the clients; he'd simply gotten tired of cheating on his wife, of squeezing secretaries in the elevator and in the halls; he'd gotten tired of Christmas parties and New Year's parties and birthdays, and payments on new cars and furniture payments -- light, gas, water -- the whole bleeding complex of necessities. He'd gotten tired and quit, that's all. The divorce came soon enough and the drinking came soon enough, and suddenly he was out of it. He had nothing, and he found out that having nothing was difficult too. It was another type of burden. If only there were some gentler road in between. It seemed a man only had two choices -- get in on the hustle or be a bum.

I was born on Halloween, and until I was eight years old my parents had me convinced that the candy people gave out when I knocked on their doors was birthday presents.

Raphael calls me every month,” said Ragnor. “Raphael knows that it is important to preserve good relations and maintain regular communication between the different Downworlder factions. I might add, Raphael always remembers important occasions in my life.” “I forgot your birthday one time sixty years ago!” said Magnus. “You need to let that go.” “It was fifty-eight years ago, for the record. And Raphael knows we need to maintain a united front against the Nephilim and not, for instance, sneak around with their underage sons,” Ragnor continued. “Alec is eighteen!” “Whatever,” said Ragnor. “Raphael would never date a Shadowhunter.” “Of course, why would he, when you two are in loooove?” Magnus asked. “‘Oooh, Raphael is always so professional.’ ‘Oooh, Raphael brought up the most interesting points in that meeting you forgot to attend.’ ‘Oooh, Raphael and I are planning a June wedding.’ Besides, Raphael would never date a Shadowhunter because Raphael has a policy of never doing anything that is awesome.

And I thought, eight years ago, when I began carefully charting the progress of American Gods, nervously dipping my toes into the waters of blogging, would I have imagined a future in which, instead of recording the vicissitudes of bringing a book into the world, I would be writing about not-even-interestingly missing cups of cold camomile tea? And I thought, yup. Sounds about right. Happy Eighth birthday, blog.

I took a steadying breath. “Listen, I know we have a full night ahead of us, but I wanted to give you your birthday present.” “Oh, darling, you didn’t need to get me anything. Every day with you is a gift.” He leaned in and kissed me. “Well, I hadn’t planned on getting you a gift, but then something presented itself, so here we are.” “All right then,” he said, placing his glass on the ground. “I’m ready. Where is it?” “That’s the only problem,” I started. I felt my hands begin to shake. “It won’t actually arrive for another seven or eight months.” He smiled but squinted. “Eight months? What in the world could take . . .” As his words drifted away, so did his eyes, leaving my face and making their way to my stomach. He seemed to expect me to look different, for me to be as big as a house already. But I’d done my best to hide everything: the tiredness, the nausea, the sudden distaste for foods. He stared on and on, and I waited for him to smile or laugh or jump up and down. But he sat there, frozen to the point that it started to frighten me. “Maxon?” I reached out and touched his leg. “Maxon, are you all right?” He nodded, still watching my stomach.

MOTHER – By Ted Kooser Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume. You have been gone a month today and have missed three rains and one nightlong watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar from six to eight while fat spring clouds went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured, a storm that walked on legs of lightning, dragging its shaggy belly over the fields. The meadowlarks are back, and the finches are turning from green to gold. Those same two geese have come to the pond again this year, honking in over the trees and splashing down. They never nest, but stay a week or two then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts, burning in circles like birthday candles, for this is the month of my birth, as you know, the best month to be born in, thanks to you, everything ready to burst with living. There will be no more new flannel nightshirts sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand. You asked me if I would be sad when it happened and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner, as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that. Were it not for the way you taught me to look at the world, to see the life at play in everything, I would have to be lonely forever.

Pink Balloons My name is Olivia King I am five years old My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist . She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand. "Here Livie, I bought this for you." She called me Livie. I was so happy . I'd never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloon wrapped around other kids wrist in the parking lot of Wal-Mart , but I never dreamed I would have my very own. My very own pink balloon. I was excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! i couldn't believe my mother bought me something! She'd never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours . It was full of helium and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom , the closet , the laundry room , the kitchen , the living room . I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother's bedroom! My mothers Bedroom? Where I wasn't supposed to be? With my pink balloon... I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never listened! She shoved me into the hallways and slammed the door, locking my pink balloon inside with her. I wanted him back! He was my best friend! Not her! The pink ribbon was still tied around my wrist so I pulled and pulled , trying to get my new best friend away from her. And it popped. My name is Eddie. I'm seventeen years old. My birthday is next week. I'll be big One-Eight. My foster dad is buying me these boots I've been wanting. I'm sure my friends will take me out to eat. My boyfriend will buy me a gift, maybe even take me to a movie. I'll even get a nice little card from my foster care worker, wishing me a happy eighteenth birthday, informing me I've aged out of the system. I'll have a good time. I know I will. But there's one thing I know for sure I better not get any shitty ass pink balloons!

Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies—my only talent—smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall—on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire.

Thanks to all the moving around Mom and I had done, I hadn't had a birthday party since I was eight years old. That had been at Chuck E. Cheese. Something told me the Council had something more elaborate in mind. "They don't need to do that," I said, shoving my hands into my pockets. "Especially with all that's going on right now." Nick flashed me a wolfish grin. "That's Prodigium for you. Very 'fiddle while Rome burns.

Sometimes you wake up, and there's a little voice inside your head that tells you that today is a special day. For a lot of kids, it sometimes happens on their birthday, and always on Christmas morning. I remember exactly one of those Christmases, when I was little and my dad was still alive. I felt it again, eight or nine years later, the morning that Justin Demourn came to pick me up from the orphanage. I felt it one more time the morning Justin brought Elaine home from whatever orphanage she had been in. And now, the little voice was telling me to wake up. That it was a special day. My little voice is some kind of psycho.

By my twenty-second birthday, you know, I had killed eight men. Eight that I was certain of, eight that I could plainly count. That information was stuffed deep within my gut, and if anyone ever asked if I killed someone during the war, particularly if a child ever asked, I vowed I’d shake my head no, that information was never coming out."--SHIFTY'S WAR

Tired of his lack of understanding, she asked him for an unusual birthday gift: that for one day he would take care of the domestic chores. He accepted in amusement, and indeed took charge of the house at dawn. He served a splendid breakfast, but he forgot that fried eggs did not agree with her and that she did not drink café con leche. Then he ordered a birthday luncheon for eight guests and gave instructions for tidying the house, and he tried so hard to manage better than she did that before noon he had to capitulate without a trace of embarrassment. From the first moment he realized he did not have the slightest idea where anything was, above all in the kitchen, and the servants let him upset everything to find each item, for they were playing the game too. At ten o’clock no decisions had been made regarding lunch because the housecleaning was not finished yet, the bedroom was not straightened, the bathroom was not scrubbed; he forgot to replace the toilet paper, change the sheets, and send the coachmen for the children, and he confused the servants’ duties: he told the cook to make the beds and set the chambermaids to cooking. At eleven o’clock, when the guests were about to arrive, the chaos in the house was such that Fermina Daza resumed command, laughing out loud, not with the triumphant attitude she would have liked but shaken instead with compassion for the domestic helplessness of her husband. He was bitter and offered the argument he always used: “Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you if you tried to cure the sick.” But it was a useful lesson, and not for him alone. Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.

Someone said that thirty was a significant birthday, and everyone around the table agreed. Someone else said it was the first time you heard the bell. What bell? someone asked. But they all knew what bell. It was like you'd already completed a few laps, observed another, but this was the first time you'd properly heard the bell. There had been one at seven, but you hadn't heard it because you were so young; and then one at fourteen but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy looking over your shoulder; then another at twenty-one but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy talking; and then one at twenty-eight which for some reason took two years before you heard it. But they all agreed you did hear that one, eventually. Your lousy career, said one guest. Babies, said one of the women. Lovers, friends, travel, said another. Parents aging. Bong. All the things you hadn't done. Might not do. Bong.

Josiah became King of Judah at the age of eight. Joan of Arc led the French Army at nineteen. King Tut led all of Egypt at age nine. Age isn't everything you think it is. Your heart and your spirit speak more than a simple candle count on your birthday cake. ~Tony (Exposing ELE)

Of course she is. Because she’s eight kinds of wonderful, and that’s just her legs.” Jeb furrows his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Taelor has all the diplomacy of a black widow spider. Garnet’s her birthstone. You’re wearing her birthday on your lip. Talk about spinning you up in her web.

Later, at the sink in our van, Mama rinsed the blue stain and the odd spiders, caterpillars, and stems from the bucket. "Not what we usually start with, but we can go again tomorrow. And this will set up nicely in about six, eight jars." The berries were beginning to simmer in the big pot on the back burner. Mama pushed her dark wooden spoon into the foaming berries and cicrcled the wall of the pot slowly. I leaned my hot arms on the table and said, "Iphy better not go tomorrow. She got tired today." I was smelling the berries and Mamaa's sweat, and watching the flex of the blue veins behind her knees. "Does them good. The twins always loved picking berries, even more than eating them. Though Elly likes her jam." "Elly doesn't like anything anymore." The knees stiffened and I looked up. The spoon was motionless. Mama stared at the pot. "Mama, Elly isn't there anymore. Iphy's changed. Everything's changed. This whole berry business, cooking big meals that nobody comes for, birthday cakes for Arty. It's dumb, Mama. Stop pretending. There isn't any family anymore, Mama." Then she cracked me with the big spoon. It smacked wet and hard across my ear, and the purple-black juice spayed across the table. She started at me, terrified, her mouth and eyes gaping with fear. I stared gaping at her. I broke and ran. I went to the generator truck and climbed up to sit by Grandpa. That's the only time Mama ever hit me and I knew I deserved it. I also knew that Mama was too far gone to understand why I deserved it. She'd swung that spoon in a tigerish reflex at blasphemy. But I believed that Arty had turned his back on us, that the twins were broken, that the Chick was lost, that Papa was weak and scared, that Mama was spinning fog, and that I was an adolescent crone sitting in the ruins, watching the beams crumble, and warming myself in the smoke from the funeral pyre. That was how I felt, and I wanted company. I hated Mama for refusing to see enough to be miserable with me. Maybe, too, enough of my child heart was still with me to think that if she would only open her eyes she could fix it all back up like a busted toy.

The second simultaneous thing Reacher was doing was playing around with a little mental arithmetic. He was multiplying big numbers in his head. He was thirty-seven years and eight months old, just about to the day. Thirty-seven multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five was thirteen thousand five hundred and five. Plus twelve days for twelve leap years was thirteen thousand five hundred and seventeen. Eight months counting from his birthday in October forward to this date in June was two hundred and forty-three days. Total of thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty days since he was born. Thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty days, thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty nights. He was trying to place this particular night somewhere on that endless scale. In terms of how bad it was. Truth was, it wasn’t the best night he had ever passed, but it was a long way from being the worst. A very long way.

The trouble is, we have up-close access to women who excel in each individual sphere. With social media and its carefully selected messaging, we see career women killing it, craft moms slaying it, chef moms nailing it, Christian leaders working it. We register their beautiful yards, homemade green chile enchiladas, themed birthday parties, eight-week Bible study series, chore charts, ab routines, “10 Tips for a Happy Marriage,” career best practices, volunteer work, and Family Fun Night ideas. We make note of their achievements, cataloging their successes and observing their talents. Then we combine the best of everything we see, every woman we admire in every genre, and conclude: I should be all of that. It is certifiably insane.

Six express tracks and twelve locals pass through Palimpsest. The six Greater Lines are: Stylus, Sgraffito, Decretal, Foolscap, Bookhand, and Missal. Collectively, in the prayers of those gathered prostrate in the brass turnstiles of its hidden, voluptuous shrines, these are referred to as the Marginalia Line. They do not run on time: rather, the commuters of Palimpsest have learned their habits, the times of day and night when they prefer to eat and drink, their mating seasons, their gathering places. In days of old, great safaris were held to catch the great trains in their inexorable passage from place to place, and women grappled with them with hooks and tridents in order to arrive punctually at a desk in the depth, of the city. As if to impress a distracted parent on their birthday, the folk of Palimpsest built great edifices where the trains liked to congregate to drink oil from the earth and exchange gossip. They laid black track along the carriages’ migratory patterns. Trains are creatures of routine, though they are also peevish and curmudgeonly. Thus the transit system of Palimpsest was raised up around the huffing behemoths that traversed its heart, and the trains have not yet expressed displeasure. To ride them is still an exercise in hunterly passion and exactitude, for they are unpredictable, and must be observed for many weeks before patterns can be discerned. The sport of commuting is attempted by only the bravest and the wildest of Palimpsest. Many have achieved such a level of aptitude that they are able to catch a train more mornings than they do not. The wise arrive early with a neat coil of hooked rope at their waist, so that if a train is in a very great hurry, they may catch it still, and ride behind on the pauper’s terrace with the rest of those who were not favored, or fast enough, or precise in their calculations. Woe betide them in the infrequent mating seasons! No train may be asked to make its regular stops when she is in heat! A man was once caught on board when an express caught the scent of a local. The poor banker was released to a platform only eight months later, when the two white leviathans had relinquished each other with regret and tears.

It is a curious thing that at my age — fifty-five last birthday — I should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so young, perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting, fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it — I don't yet know how big — but I do not think I would go through the last fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the "Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if I have any.

My eighty-eight birthday arrives shortly. I cannot fathom that number of years. I admit to seeing an old woman when I look in the mirror–the short, wispy, flyaway white hair that is evident I cut myself, the thick population of brown spots on the backs of my hands and forearms, the still–vibrant blue eyes– and I am surprised, always, because inside, where I live, I am at most forty, still eager for change, still hungry for learning, still curious, still yearning.

My birthday cake was her latest project because it was not from a mix but instead built from scratch- the flour, the baking soda, lemon-flavored because at eight that had been my request; I had developed a strong love for sour. We'd looked through several cookbooks together to find just the right one, and the smell in the kitchen was overpoweringly pleasant. To be clear: the bite I ate was delicious. Warm citrus-baked batter lightness enfolded by cool deep dark swirled sugar.

For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans burned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused. Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and never would be again. But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out. It was my eighteenth birthday.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base Only sentries were stirring--they guarded the place. At the foot of each bunk sat a helmet and boot For the Santa of Soldiers to fill up with loot. The soldiers were sleeping and snoring away As they dreamed of “back home” on good Christmas Day. One snoozed with his rifle--he seemed so content. I slept with the letters my family had sent. When outside the tent there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my rack to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Poked out my head, and yelled, “What was that crash?” When what to my thrill and relief should appear, But one of our Blackhawks to give the all clear. More rattles and rumbles! I heard a deep whine! Then up drove eight Humvees, a jeep close behind… Each vehicle painted a bright Christmas green. With more lights and gold tinsel than I’d ever seen. The convoy commander leaped down and he paused. I knew then and there it was Sergeant McClaus! More rapid than rockets, his drivers they came When he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Cohen! Mendoza! Woslowski! McCord! Now, Li! Watts! Donetti! And Specialist Ford!” “Go fill up my sea bags with gifts large and small! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, all!” In the blink of an eye, to their trucks the troops darted. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Through the tent flap the sergeant came in with a bound. He was dressed all in camo and looked quite a sight With a Santa had added for this special night. His eyes--sharp as lasers! He stood six feet six. His nose was quite crooked, his jaw hard as bricks! A stub of cigar he held clamped in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. A young driver walked in with a seabag in tow. McClaus took the bag, told the driver to go. Then the sarge went to work. And his mission today? Bring Christmas from home to the troops far away! Tasty gifts from old friends in the helmets he laid. There were candies, and cookies, and cakes, all homemade. Many parents sent phone cards so soldiers could hear Treasured voices and laughter of those they held dear. Loving husbands and wives had mailed photos galore Of weddings and birthdays and first steps and more. And for each soldier’s boot, like a warm, happy hug, There was art from the children at home sweet and snug. As he finished the job--did I see a twinkle? Was that a small smile or instead just a wrinkle? To the top of his brow he raised up his hand And gave a salute that made me feel grand. I gasped in surprise when, his face all aglow, He gave a huge grin and a big HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! from the barracks and then from the base. HO! HO! HO! as the convoy sped up into space. As the camp radar lost him, I heard this faint call: “HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BRAVE SOLDIERS! MAY PEACE COME TO ALL!

Maybe Mikey is about to have his perfect life with kids and a wife and a rock band and everything he's ever wanted, while I'm dehydrated and tired and should be drinking water, but I'm not, I'm drinking coffee, spending seven dollars and sixty-eight cents to with myself a happy fucking eighteenth birthday that I'd forgotten all about.

Only twice in my nearly fifty years of friendship with David Belasco did he ever disappoint me; and I am glad that experience came early. When I was perhaps seven or eight years old, he promised me, many months before my birthday, that he would give me a pony. What boy would nurse that promise to his bosom for any number of months? When the 12th of August dawned, I was downstairs early, I think before anyone else was up. I looked out at the barnyard. No pony. I waited all day. No pony. I said nothing. No pony. There were other presents, of course, and all the other excitement of a small boy’s birthday: but underneath it I was having my very first experience of a forgotten promise.

When, sometime around my fortieth birthday, I was struck by the urge to try to write a novel, I was vastly comforted to learn that Rex Stout didn’t write his first Nero Wolfe tale until he was forty-seven, and that he proceeded to write them right up to his death at the age of eighty-eight. It was considerably less comforting to learn that he typically completed a novel in thirty-eight days, and that he always got it right on the first try. P. G. Wodehouse once said, “Stout’s supreme triumph was the creation of Archie Goodwin.” That’s how I’ve always felt about it, too. When I returned those first Rex Stout books to my librarian, I said to her, “Do you have any more of these Archie Goodwin stories?” She smiled, I recall, and said, “Why, yes. Dozens.

An economic blockade may cause more deaths by a factor of a hundred, but it does so silently and behind closed doors. Its first victims are the very young, the very old and the very sick. The numbers of children dying before their first birthday increased from one in thirty when sanctions were imposed to one in eight seven years later. Many Iraqis were simply not getting enough to eat. I

I will leave you if you ever do that again,” she said after the first time, and she was deadly serious, my God she was serious. She knew exactly how she was meant to behave in a situation like this. The boys were only eight months old. Perry cried. She cried. He promised. He swore on his children’s lives. He was heartbroken. He bought her the first piece of jewelry she would never wear. A week after the twins had their second birthday, it happened again. Worse than the first time.

He wants me to go to a party. I haven’t been to a party since Kenny Smith from next door invited me to his birthday when we were eight, and that ended with me getting pushed into his pool and laughed at all the way home. Can I think about it? Yeah, of course. I’m not going. I like to tell myself I might go—I like to tell myself I might do a lot of things—but I and my brain and everyone else know that I’m going to chicken out in the end and barricade myself in my bedroom with a plate of pizza rolls and my Netflix subscription.

forty-five and eight fifteen. I know from the quality of the light, from the sounds of the street outside my window, from the sound of Cathy vacuuming the hallway right outside my room. Cathy gets up early to clean the house every Saturday, no matter what. It could be her birthday, it could be the morning of the Rapture—Cathy will get up early on Saturday to clean. She says it’s cathartic, it sets her up for a good weekend, and because she cleans the house aerobically, it means she doesn’t have to go to the gym. It doesn’t really bother me, this

with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

And I think now, as my fiftieth birthday draws near, about the American novelist Thomas Wolfe, who was only thirty-eight years old when he died. He got a lot of help in organizing his novels from Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons. I have heard that Perkins told him to keep in mind as he wrote, as a unifying idea, a hero’s search for a father. It seems to me that really truthful American novels would have the heroes and heroines alike looking for mothers instead. This needn’t be embarrassing. It’s simply true. A mother is much more useful. I wouldn’t feel particularly good if I found another father.

She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read: The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

through the wonders of consumer culture and hey-look-my-life-is-cooler-than-yours social media, has bred a whole generation of people who believe that having these negative experiences—anxiety, fear, guilt, etc.—is totally not okay. I mean, if you look at your Facebook feed, everybody there is having a fucking grand old time. Look, eight people got married this week! And some sixteen-year-old on TV got a Ferrari for her birthday. And another kid just made two billion dollars inventing an app that automatically delivers you more toilet paper when you run out. Meanwhile, you’re stuck at home flossing your cat. And you can’t help but think your life sucks even more than you thought. The Feedback Loop from Hell has become a borderline epidemic, making many of us overly stressed, overly neurotic, and overly self-loathing.

But Hock Seng doesn’t contest the foreigner’s words. He’ll put out the bounty, regardless. If the cats are allowed to stay, the workers will start rumors that Phii Oun the cheshire trickster spirit has caused the calamity. The devil cats flicker closer. Calico and ginger, black as night—all of them fading in and out of view as their bodies take on the colors of their surroundings. They shade red as they dip into the blood pool.  Hock Seng has heard that cheshires were supposedly created by a calorie executive—some PurCal or AgriGen man, most likely—for a daughter’s birthday. A party favor for when the little princess turned as old as Lewis Carroll’s Alice.  The child guests took their new pets home where they mated with natural felines, and within twenty years, the devil cats were on every continent and Felis domesticus was gone from the face of the world, replaced by a genetic string that bred true ninety-eight percent of the time. The Green Headbands in Malaya hated Chinese people and cheshires equally, but as far as Hock Seng knows, the devil cats still thrive there. 

The problem is to reveal an intelligence to itself. Anything can be used. Télémaque. Or a prayer or a song that the child or the ignorant one knows by heart. There is always something the ignorant one knows that can be used as a point of comparison, something to which a new thing to be learned can be related. The locksmith who opens his eyes wide when told he can read bears witness to this. He doesn’t even know the alphabet. Let him take the time to glance at the calendar. Doesn’t he know the order of the months and can’t he thus figure out January, February, March. He knows how to count a little. And what’s to prevent him from counting softly while following the lines in order to recognize in written form what he already knows? He knows he is called William and that his birthday is January 16th. He will soon know how to find the word. He knows that February has only twenty-eight days. He sees that one column is shorter than the others and he will recognize “28.” And so on. There is always something that the master can ask him to find, something about which he can question him and thus verify the work of his intelligence.

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is. You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart eleven, not until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is. Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one

less rotted and she nibbles it smiling. “Look,” I show her, “there’s holes in my cake where the chocolates were till just now.” “Like craters,” she says. She puts her fingertop in one. “What’s craters?” “Holes where something happened. Like a volcano or an explosion or something.” I put the green chocolate back in its crater and do ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, boom. It flies up into Outer Space and around into my mouth. My birthday cake is the best thing I ever ate. Ma isn’t hungry for any right now. Skylight’s sucking all the light away, she’s nearly black. “It’s the spring equinox,” says Ma, “I remember it said on TV, the morning you were born. There was still snow that year too.” “What’s equinox?” “It means equal, when there’s the same amount of dark and light.” It’s too late for any TV because of the cake, Watch says 08:33. My yellow hoody nearly rips my head off when Ma’s pulling it. I get into my sleep T-shirt and brush my teeth while Ma ties up the trash bag and puts it beside Door with our list that I wrote, tonight it says Please, Pasta, Lentils, Tuna, Cheese (if not too $), O.J., Thanks. “Can we ask for grapes? They’re good for us.” At the bottom Ma puts Grapes if poss (or any fresh fruit or canned). “Can I have a story?” “Just a quick one. What about… GingerJack?” She does it really fast and funny, Gingerjack jumps out of the stove and runs and rolls and rolls and runs so nobody can catch him, not the old lady or the old man or the threshers or

But then, as I’m leaving school, I see John parked out front. He’s standing in front of his car; he hasn’t seen me yet. In this bright afternoon light, the sun warms John’s blond head like a halo, and suddenly I’m struck with the visceral memory of loving him from afar, studiously, ardently. I so admired his slender hands, the slope of his cheekbones. Once upon a time I knew his face by heart. I had him memorized. My steps quicken. “Hi!” I say, waving. “How are you here right now? Don’t you have school today?” “I left early,” he says. “You? John Ambrose McClaren cut school?” He laughs. “I brought you something.” John pulls a box out of his coat pocket and thrusts it at me. “Here.” I take it from him, it’s heavy and substantial in my palm. “Should I…should I open it right now?” “If you want.” I can feel his eyes on me as I rip off the paper, open the white box. He’s anxious. I ready a smile on my face so he’ll know I like it, no matter what it is. Just the fact that he thought to buy me a present is so…dear. Nestled in white tissue paper is a snow globe the size of an orange, with a brass bottom. A boy and girl are ice-skating inside. She’s wearing a red sweater; she has on earmuffs. She’s making a figure eight, and he’s admiring her. It’s a moment caught in amber. One perfect moment, preserved under glass. Just like that night it snowed in April. “I love it,” I say, and I do, so much. Only a person who really knew me could give me this gift. To feel so known, so understood. It’s such a wonderful feeling, I could cry. It’s something I’ll keep forever. This moment, and this snow globe. I get on my tiptoes and hug him, and he wraps his arms around me tight and then tighter. “Happy birthday, Lara Jean.

It's hard to form a lasting connection when your permanent address is an eight-inch mailbox in the UPS store. Still,as I inch my way closer, I can't help the way my breath hitches, the way my insides thrum and swirl. And when he turns,flashing me that slow, languorous smile that's about to make him world famous,his eyes meeting mine when he says, "Hey,Daire-Happy Sweet Sixteen," I can't help but think of the millions of girls who would do just about anything to stand in my pointy blue babouches. I return the smile, flick a little wave of my hand, then bury it in the side pocket of the olive-green army jacket I always wear. Pretending not to notice the way his gaze roams over me, straying from my waist-length brown hair peeking out from my scarf, to the tie-dyed tank top that clings under my jacket,to the skinny dark denim jeans,all the way down to the brand-new slippers I wear on my feet. "Nice." He places his foot beside mine, providing me with a view of the his-and-hers version of the very same shoe. Laughing when he adds, "Maybe we can start a trend when we head back to the States.What do you think?" We. There is no we. I know it.He knows it.And it bugs me that he tries to pretend otherwise. The cameras stopped rolling hours ago, and yet here he is,still playing a role. Acting as though our brief, on-location hookup means something more. Acting like we won't really end long before our passports are stamped RETURN. And that's all it takes for those annoyingly soft girly feelings to vanish as quickly as a flame in the rain. Allowing the Daire I know,the Daire I've honed myself to be, to stand in her palce. "Doubtful." I smirk,kicking his shoe with mine.A little harder then necessary, but then again,he deserves it for thinking I'm lame enough to fall for his act. "So,what do you say-food? I'm dying for one of those beef brochettes,maybe even a sausage one too.Oh-and some fries would be good!" I make for the food stalls,but Vane has another idea. His hand reaches for mine,fingers entwining until they're laced nice and tight. "In a minute," he says,pulling me so close my hip bumps against his. "I thought we might do something special-in honor of your birthday and all.What do you think about matching tattoos?" I gape.Surely he's joking. "Yeah,you know,mehndi. Nothing permanent.Still,I thought it could be kinda cool." He arcs his left brow in his trademark Vane Wick wau,and I have to fight not to frown in return. Nothing permanent. That's my theme song-my mission statement,if you will. Still,mehndi's not quite the same as a press-on. It has its own life span. One that will linger long after Vane's studio-financed, private jet lifts him high into the sky and right out of my life. Though I don't mention any of that, instead I just say, "You know the director will kill you if you show up on set tomorrow covered in henna." Vane shrugs. Shrugs in a way I've seen too many times, on too many young actors before him.He's in full-on star-power mode.Think he's indispensable. That he's the only seventeen-year-old guy with a hint of talent,golden skin, wavy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that can light up a screen and make the girls (and most of their moms) swoon. It's a dangerous way to see yourself-especially when you make your living in Hollywood. It's the kind of thinking that leads straight to multiple rehab stints, trashy reality TV shows, desperate ghostwritten memoirs, and low-budget movies that go straight to DVD.

The birds had multiplied. She'd installed rows upon rows of floating melamine shelves above shoulder height to accommodate the expression of her once humble collection. Though she'd had bird figurines all over the apartment, the bulk of her prized collection was confined to her bedroom because it had given her joy to wake up to them every morning. Before I'd left, I had a tradition of gifting her with bird figurines. It began with a storm petrel, a Wakamba carving of ebony wood from Kenya I had picked up at the museum gift shop from a sixth-grade school field trip. She'd adored the unexpected birthday present, and I had hunted for them since. Clusters of ceramic birds were perched on every shelf. Her obsession had brought her happiness, so I'd fed it. The tiki bird from French Polynesia nested beside a delft bluebird from the Netherlands. One of my favorites was a glass rainbow macaw from an Argentinian artist that mimicked the vibrant barrios of Buenos Aires. Since the sixth grade, I'd given her one every year until I'd left: eight birds in total. As I lifted each member of her extensive bird collection, I imagined Ma-ma was with me, telling a story about each one. There were no signs of dust anywhere; cleanliness had been her religion. I counted eighty-eight birds in total. Ma-ma had been busy collecting while I was gone. I couldn't deny that every time I saw a beautiful feathered creature in figurine form, I thought of my mother. If only I'd sent her one, even a single bird, from my travels, it could have been the precursor to establishing communication once more. Ma-ma had spoken to her birds often, especially when she cleaned them every Saturday morning. I had imagined she was some fairy-tale princess in the Black Forest holding court over an avian kingdom. I was tempted to speak to them now, but I didn't want to be the one to convey the loss of their queen. Suddenly, however, Ma-ma's collection stirred. It began as a single chirp, a mournful cry swelling into a chorus. The figurines burst into song, tiny beaks opening, chests puffed, to release a somber tribute to their departed beloved. The tune was unfamiliar, yet its melancholy was palpable, rising, surging until the final trill when every bird bowed their heads toward the empty bed, frozen as if they hadn't sung seconds before. I thanked them for the happiness they'd bestowed on Ma-ma.

When someone says, “Happy birthday and many happy returns of the day,” I usually say, “If God takes up my option.” In the motion picture business there were once options, usually yearly. If taken up, your contract was extended for another year by the studio. It is appalling to realize that God has taken up my option for seventy-eight years.

here’s the problem: Our society today, through the wonders of consumer culture and hey-look-my-life-is-cooler-than-yours social media, has bred a whole generation of people who believe that having these negative experiences—anxiety, fear, guilt, etc.—is totally not okay. I mean, if you look at your Facebook feed, everybody there is having a fucking grand old time. Look, eight people got married this week! And some sixteen-year-old on TV got a Ferrari for her birthday. And another kid just made two billion dollars inventing an app that automatically delivers you more toilet paper when you run out. Meanwhile, you’re stuck

having specific things to look forward to massively increases your enjoyment of them. “It extends the experience,” says Cassie Mogilner, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who specializes in happiness research. “The whole time you’re looking forward to it and anticipating it, you’re getting some of the benefits of the experience itself.” This is one of the reasons why people love vacation travel. You generally have to figure it out at least a few days ahead of time. Indeed, research published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life in 2010 found that vacation anticipation boosted happiness levels for eight weeks—an argument for planning more shorter trips rather than a few longer ones. Plan a four-day weekend every other month and the happiness boost could last all year. I know this anticipation factor is why I always have great birthday weeks. Not only do I think ahead of time about what I’d like to do—meeting up with friends, taking the kids somewhere fun, getting a massage—I plan these activities in advance and then enjoy seeing them on my calendar, knowing that tickets are purchased and babysitters are booked.

On November 2, 1899, eight members of the United States Navy were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and service beyond the call of duty. On the night of June 2, 1898, they had volunteered to scuttle the collier USS Merrimac, with the intention of blocking the entry channel to Santiago de Cuba. On orders of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who was in command, their intention was to trap Spanish Admiral Cervera’s fleet in the harbor. Getting the USS Merrimac underway, the eight men navigated the ship towards a predetermined location where sinking her would seal the port. Their course knowingly took them within the range of the Spanish ships and the shore batteries. The sailors were well aware of the danger this put them into, however they put their mission first. Once the Spanish gunners saw what was happening, they realized what the Americans were up to and started firing their heavy artillery from an extremely close range. The channel leading into Santiago is narrow, preventing the ship from taking any evasive action. The American sailors were like fish in a barrel and the Spanish gunners were relentless. In short order, the heavy shelling from the Spanish shore batteries disabled the rudder of the Merrimac and caused the ship to sink prematurely. The USS Merrimac went down without achieving its objective of obstructing navigation and sealing the port. ‎Fête du Canada or Canada Day is the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Canadian Constitution Act. This weekend Americans also celebrate the United States’, July 4, 1776 birthday, making this time perfect to celebrate George Fredrick Phillips heroic action. Phillips was one of the men mentioned in the story above of the USS Merrimac. He was born on March 8, 1862, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and joined the United States Navy in March 1898 in Galveston, Texas. Phillips became a Machinist First Class and displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the Spanish bombardment during their operation. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1903, and died a year later at the age of 42 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His body was returned to Canada where he was interred with honors at the Fernhill Cemetery in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick.

To be eight years old when last night one was merely seven, this is pleasure; to hope for birthday presents without any doubt of receiving some, this also is pleasure. And doubtless you now think so, my children, and it is quite right that so you should think: yet I tell you, from the sad knowledge of my older experience, that to every one of you a day will most likely come when sunshine, hope, presents and pleasure will be worth nothing to you in comparison with the unattainable gift of your mother's kiss.

Rosa got home from the office at five-thirty. They didn't go out for dinner and they didn't make love. The autopsy she'd completed was that of a girl who had died on her birthday. Only eight years old, and the parents had left her alone when they went to play the slots at the Miccosukee casino, way out on Krome Avenue. The girl was doing laps in the backyard pool when her appendix ruptured, no one there to hear the cries for help. She made it back to the shallow end but the pain doubled her up, and that's where they'd found her--the parents, so shitfaced they couldn't remember where they'd left their car keys.

Happy birthday, dear Maria,” sang Lizzie, along with everyone else. “Happy birthday to you!” Lizzie gave Maria a special smile as she sang. There were a lot of kids at the party — almost everybody in their class was there — but everyone knew that Lizzie Peterson and Maria Santiago were best friends. They sat next to each other in class, played on the same kickball team at recess, and always ate lunch together. They had the same favorite color (purple) and the same lucky number (eight). They both loved fudge ripple ice cream, cool socks, snowstorms, and reading. Most of all, Lizzie and Maria loved animals. That was why Maria had decided to have her birthday party at Caring Paws, the animal shelter where she and Lizzie both volunteered. It was Lizzie’s idea: she had gotten all excited when she had read about a boy who had his party at a shelter. “Instead of presents,” she’d told Maria, “everybody brought donations for the animals.” Maria wasn’t so sure at first. “Why don’t you do it for your birthday?” she’d asked Lizzie. “I will, but mine’s not for months and yours is coming right up. I know your real birthday isn’t until Monday, but we can have the party on Saturday. Come on, it’ll be fun! We can play animal-themed games, and decorate the meeting room with colorful paw prints, and have a dog bone–shaped cake, and everything.” Lizzie was full of ideas, and she could be very convincing. “It’s a great Caring Club activity, too. Think of all the donations you’ll get for the shelter. Ms. Dobbins will be very happy.” Ms. Dobbins was the shelter’s director. When Lizzie had started the Caring Club, Maria had been one of the first to join. Caring Club was for kids who loved animals and wanted to help them. Maria’s favorite animals were horses. She loved to ride, and she spent a lot of time at the stable. Lizzie had gone with her a few times, and had even taken riding lessons for a while, but she had never learned to love horses as much as she loved dogs. Lizzie really, really loved dogs. In fact, Lizzie was dog-crazy.

Our society today, through the wonders of consumer culture and hey-look-my-life-is-cooler-than-yours social media, has bred a whole generation of people who believe that having these negative experiences—anxiety, fear, guilt, etc.—is totally not okay. I mean, if you look at your Facebook feed, everybody there is having a fucking grand old time. Look, eight people got married this week! And some sixteen-year-old on TV got a Ferrari for her birthday. And another kid just made two billion dollars inventing an app that automatically delivers you more toilet paper when you run out.

The rituals you create in your lives together are important and will keep you connected. One of the rituals we hope you’ll create is, of course, a date night every week. You can also create mini-rituals for when you part from each other and return to each other—like the 6-second kiss. Think about ways you can celebrate the triumphs in life both minor and major. What will be special for the two of you? Think about community rituals with friends and rituals for birthdays and other celebrations. There is almost no end to the ways in which you can create shared meaning to connect a couple. Be creative and be authentic to what is most meaningful for each other. Sharing about your day can be a ritual for connection. Gently try to uncover what is stressing the other person out, or making them fearful. Creating a safe space to share your interior world with each other is a ritual for connection. Every moment you’re together, and even when you’re not, you have an opportunity to honour all that is sacred in your relationship—however you define it.

Happy birthday, dear Maria,” sang Lizzie, along with everyone else. “Happy birthday to you!” Lizzie gave Maria a special smile as she sang. There were a lot of kids at the party — almost everybody in their class was there — but everyone knew that Lizzie Peterson and Maria Santiago were best friends. They sat next to each other in class, played on the same kickball team at recess, and always ate lunch together. They had the same favorite color (purple) and the same lucky number (eight). They both loved fudge ripple ice cream, cool socks, snowstorms, and reading. Most of all, Lizzie and Maria loved animals. That was why Maria had decided to have her birthday party at Caring Paws,

Do you still have the pepper spray I bought for your birthday last year?” “Yes. Thanks for that, by the way.” I’d wanted a new camera bag, but Josh had bought me an eight-pack of pepper spray instead. I’d never used any of it, which meant all eight bottles—

hands and transported by animal effort, eight dollars, ten dollars, sixteen dollars a ton. They were piled beside the railroad tracks as each section was built farther west. Hills of bones, mountains of blind skulls, loaded onto railroad cars and shipped back east to process sugar. So it was, every teaspoon of sugar that was stirred into a cup or baked into a pudding was haunted by the slave trade and the slaughter of the buffalo. Just as now, into every teaspoon, is mixed the pragmatic nihilism of industrial sugar farming and the death of our place on earth. This is the sweetness that pricks people’s senses and sparkles in a birthday cake and glitters on the tongue. Price guaranteed, delicious, a craving strong as love.

When I turn eight, I don’t get any birthday cards or a cake like the other kids in the orphanage—I sit under the bed with a drawing of my spider and imagine a crowd of people singing happy birthday to me, and we blow out candles that I draw. I close my eyes and make a wish. I wish someone would choose me.

Mick required far less hand-holding than Michael. Signing the Stones, though, had required a full frontal assault worthy of General Patton, one of my heroes. The final battle exploded at the Ritz Hotel in Paris back in ’83. After months of relentless pursuit, I had them. All they had to do was sign when suddenly at 3 A.M. Mick goes mental and calls me a “stupid motherfuckin’ record executive.” I lose it. I reach for his throat. I have a vision of punching out all ninety-eight pounds of him. I stop myself, envisioning tomorrow’s headline—“Yetnikoff Kills Jagger.” Jagger relents, signs and from then on it’s wine and roses. It was Mick—wily and witty Mick—who later that year plotted with my girlfriend, the one called Boom Boom, to throw me a surprise fiftieth birthday bash where Henny Youngman emceed and Jon Peters, Barbra

They were a mile from Grant’s place at eight-fifteen. The day before, they’d spotted a diner with a strong and reliable Wi-Fi and no protection, with parking on the side and in back, out of sight from the street. Kidd signed on from a laptop and dialed up another laptop, which was hooked into his cell phone, back at the condo. His phone made a call to a friend who, at that moment, was playing a violin in a chamber quartet at the birthday party for a St. Paul surgeon’s wife. Kidd let the call ring through to the answering service, left a message that suggested handball on Friday. “Done,” he said, when he’d hung up. An alibi. Both of their desktop computers would be roaming websites all through the evening, and they’d send out a couple of e-mails.

I’m Captain Florida, the state history pimp Gatherin’ more data than a DEA blimp West Palm, Tampa Bay, Miami-Dade Cruisin’ the coasts till Johnny Vegas gets laid Developer ho’s, and the politician bitches Smackin’ ’em down, while I’m takin’ lots of pictures Hurricanes, sinkholes, natural disaster ’Scuse me while I kick back, with my View-Master (S:) I’m Captain Florida, obscure facts are all legit (C:) I’m Coleman, the sidekick, with a big bong hit (S:) I’m Captain Florida, staying literate (C:) Coleman sees a book and says, “Fuck that shit” Ain’t never been caught, slippin’ nooses down the Keys Got more buoyancy than Elián González Knockin’ off the parasites, and takin’ all their moola Recruiting my apostles for the Church of Don Shula I’m an old-school gangster with a psycho ex-wife Molly Packin’ Glocks, a shotgun and my 7-Eleven coffee Trippin’ the theme parks, the malls, the time-shares Bustin’ my rhymes through all the red-tide scares (S:) I’m the surge in the storms, don’t believe the hype (C:) I’m his stoned number two, where’d I put my hash pipe? (S:) Florida, no appointments and a tank of gas (C:) Tequila, no employment and a bag of grass Think you’ve seen it all? I beg to differ Mosquitoes like bats and a peg-leg stripper The scammers, the schemers, the real estate liars Birthday-party clowns in a meth-lab fire But dig us, don’t diss us, pay a visit, don’t be late And statistics always lie, so ignore the murder rate Beaches, palm trees and golfing is our curse Our residents won’t bite, but a few will shoot first Everglades, orange groves, alligators, Buffett Scarface, Hemingway, an Andrew Jackson to suck it Solarcaine, Rogaine, eight balls of cocaine See the hall of fame for the criminally insane Artifacts, folklore, roadside attractions Crackers, Haitians, Cuban-exile factions The early-bird specials, drivin’ like molasses Condo-meeting fistfights in cataract glasses (S:) I’m the native tourist, with the rants that can’t be beat (C:) Serge, I think I put my shoes on the wrong feet (S:) A stack of old postcards in another dingy room (C:) A cold Bud forty and a magic mushroom Can’t stop, turnpike, keep ridin’ like the wind Gotta make a detour for a souvenir pin But if you like to litter, you’re just liable to get hurt Do ya like the MAC-10 under my tropical shirt? I just keep meeting jerks, I’m a human land-filler But it’s totally unfair, this term “serial killer” The police never rest, always breakin’ in my pad But sunshine is my bling, and I’m hangin’ like a chad (S:) Serge has got to roll and drop the mike on this rap . . . (C:) Coleman’s climbin’ in the tub, to take a little nap . . . (S:) . . . Disappearin’ in the swamp—and goin’ tangent, tangent, tangent . . . (C:) He’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (Fade-out) (S:) I’m goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (C:) Fuck goin’ platinum, he’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (S:) . . . Wikipedia all up and down your ass . . . (C:) Wikity-Wikity-Wikity . . .

Jimmy Fargo’s birthday party. All the other guys got to take home goldfish in little plastic bags. I won him because I guessed there were three hundred and forty-eight jelly beans in Mrs. Fargo’s jar. Really,

She was fast approaching thirty, and with that impending birthday the way she thought of her own life was beginning to change. When she was twenty, she thought of people in their thirties as, well, old: after all, they had lived as long as she had and half as long again, and so they must have been tired, with the beginnings of aches in their bones and the first intimations of their own mortality. But the peculiar horror of growing older was not what she expected. In fact, she felt the same age as she had eight years ago, and twenty-eight years of life had managed to compress themselves into a life-span that once comfortably held twenty. It wasn't that she was getting older, but that the years were getting shorter, and were therefore more precious. You had to use them sparingly.

From the First World War to his death eighteen years later, George V spent just eight weeks abroad. George VI travelled widely as Duke of York but for much of his reign his capacity for travel was curtailed by war and ill health. The Queen, who had never left the country until shortly before her twenty-first birthday, has visited 135 separate nations, some of them several times. And yet she had to wait until she was eighty-five to visit the nearest of the lot – the Republic of Ireland – in May 2011.

the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday, you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like as if you are three. Because the way you grow old is like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk.

According to United Nations data, a sixty-year-old American man can expect to live for another twenty-plus years; a sixty-year-old American woman will be around for another quarter of a century. In Japan, a sixty-year-old man can expect to live past his eighty-second birthday, a sixty-year-old woman to nearly eighty-eight.

AM: My father had arrived in New York all alone, from the middle of Poland, before his seventh birthday… He arrived in New York, his parents were too busy to pick him up at Castle Garden and sent his next eldest brother Abe, going on 10, to find him, get him through immigration and bring him home to Stanton Street and the tenement where in two rooms the eight of them lived and worked, sewing the great long, many-buttoned cloaks that were the fashion then. They sent him to school for about six months, figuring he had enough. He never learned how to spell, he never learned how to figure. Then he went right back into the shop. By the time he was 12 he was employing two other boys to sew sleeves on coats alongside him in some basement workshop. KM: He went on the road when he was about 16 I think… selling clothes at a wholesale level. AM: He ended up being the support of the entire family because he started the business in 1921 or something. The Miltex Coat Company, which turned out to be one of the largest manufacturers in this country. See we lived in Manhattan then, on 110th Street facing the Park. It was beautiful apartment up on the sixth floor. KM: We had a chauffeur driven car. The family was wealthy. AM: It was the twenties and I remember our mother and father going to a show every weekend. And coming back Sunday morning and she would be playing the sheet music of the musicals. JM: It was an arranged marriage. But a woman of her ability to be married off to a man who couldn’t read or write… I think Gussie taught him how to read and to sign his name. AM: She knew she was being wasted, I think. But she respected him a lot. And that made up for a little. Until he really crashed, economically. And then she got angry with him. First the chauffeur was let go, then the summer bungalow was discarded, the last of her jewellery had to be pawned or sold. And then another step down - the move to Brooklyn. Not just in the case of my father but every boy I knew. I used to pal around with half a dozen guys and all their fathers were simply blown out of the water. I could not avoid awareness of my mother’s anger at this waning of his powers. A certain sneering contempt for him that filtered through her voice. RM: So how did the way you saw your father change when he lost his money? AM: Terrible… pity for him. Because so much of his authority sprang from the fact that he was a very successful businessman. And he always knew what he as doing. And suddenly: nothin’. He didn’t know where he was. It was absolutely not his fault, it was the Great Crash of the ‘29, ‘30, ‘31 period. So from that I always, I think, contracted the idea that we’re very deeply immersed in political and economic life of the country, of the world. And that these forces end up in the bedroom and they end up in the father and son and father and daughter arrangements. In Death of a Salesman what I was interested in there was what his world and what his life had left him with. What that had done to him? Y’know a guy can’t make a living, he loses his dignity. He loses his male force. And so you tend to make up for it by telling him he's OK anyway. Or else you turn your back on him and leave. All of which helps create integrated plays, incidentally. Where you begin to look: well, its a personality here but what part is being played by impersonal forces?

Today, children following the CDC-recommended vaccination schedule receive a minimum of seventy-three shots for seventeen different diseases, with a whopping twenty-eight injections by their first birthday.2 At a two-month “well baby visit,” an infant may receive as many as six vaccines for eight different diseases.

On 2 October 1947, Gandhi turned seventy-eight. From the morning a stream of visitors came to wish him. They included his close lieutenants Nehru and Patel, now prime minister and home minister respectively in the Government of India. Gandhi was not displeased to see his old friends and comrades. But his overall frame of mind was bleak. ‘What sin have I committed,’ he told Patel in Gujarati, 'that He should have kept me alive to witness all these horrors?’ As he told the audience at that evening’s prayer meeting: ‘I am surprised and also ashamed that I am still alive. I am the same person whose word was honoured by the millions of the country. But today nobody listens to me. You want only the Hindus to remain in India and say that none else should be left behind. You may kill the Muslims today; but what will you do tomorrow? What will happen to the Parsis and the Christians and then to the British? After all, they are also Christians.’ Ever since his release from jail in 1944, Gandhi had spoken often of wanting to live for 125 years. Now, in the face of the barbarism around him, he had givenup that ambition. ‘In such a situation,’ he asked, ‘what place do I have in India and what is the point of my being alive?’ Gandhi told the crowd who had gathered to wish him at Birla House that ‘if you really want to celebrate my birthday, it is your duty not to let anyone be possessed by madness and if there is any anger in your hearts you must remove it’.

I was only twenty-eight, but my parents acted like I would shrivel into the Crypt Keeper the second midnight struck on my thirtieth birthday.

We, by contrast, have a risk of death which doubles every eight years. This doesn’t start out so bad: aged 30, your odds of dying that year are less than 1 in 1,000. However, if you keep on doubling something it can start small but, eventually, get very large very quickly: at 65, your risk of death that year is 1 percent; at 80, 5 percent; and by 90, if you make it that far, your odds of not making your 91st birthday are a sobering one in six. There is some evidence that this relationship flattens out after the age of 105 or so, meaning that these exceptionally long-lived people might have technically stopped aging—but, with odds of death around 50 percent per year by then, they might wish it had flattened out slightly sooner.

Music is a universe of sound, constantly expanding and dividing. Compositions are carved into movements and passages. A half note branches off into quarter notes, sixteenth notes—the same tone, yet held for a different duration, a different effect. A harmony of multiple notes, a counterpoint of multiple melodies, an orchestra of multiple instruments: separate spheres, playing in parallel. “A composer must make order out of this hopeless profusion of noise. To play every note at once—one big, all-encompassing dot—would produce chaos. To play none would produce silence. But to space them out artfully on a staff of time: that would produce a masterpiece. “And so the composer splits the piece into measures and meter. The notes are held tight within bar lines, told when to ring out and when to die out, when to attack and when to decay. They are given finite boundaries. *You will last for eight breaths, and no more.* To them, time is fixed; to the composer, it is fluid. She could speed it up, slow it down, change duple meter to triple meter or a march to a waltz. She knows that the beauty lies not in how long the note lasts, but in the sound that it makes while it does. “Maybe, the woman thinks, our composer has done the same with us. Lest eternity seem too long and infinity too loud, she imposes measures on our existence, divides it into years, generations, incarnations. We count beats and birthdays. We emerge from the silence, and we fade back into it. This is not a punishment or a curse, any more than it is to assign a time signature to a song. After all, if there is no beat, how can there be a dance? “She does not do this to make us suffer. She does this to make us music.

would never, ever say it to their face—as mentioned, we are way above the Mommy Wars. But still. We think they have it easier. Every day while we are living our lives of servitude, they go to a place, in real clothes, where they are paid to sit comfortably among adults and think entire, complete, punctuated thoughts. Often this place has free coffee round the clock and cake on their birthdays. Yes, work is work, and no, not every day is a joyfest. But here is what I did not realize when I handed in my resignation at the community college and became a professional mom: if you work outside the home, for eight or so back-to-back hours every weekday, you wipe zero butts that do not belong to you. And to be clear, butt wiping is pretty much the easiest part of stay-at-home-mom work. I would gladly wipe ten more butts per day if it did away with even just the raisin-related tantrums. If it meant I didn’t have to stand outside in every kind of weather saying, “I see! I’m watching!” while one of a succession of toddlers does absolutely nothing of interest for the tenth time in a row. If you have a full-time job outside the home, that means that for eight solid hours every day, no one asks you to go down a wet slide or starts crying

The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

managed to come up with a plan in just under eight minutes, but after I had examined it from every angle I realized it wasn’t workable in this situation. It required powerful machinery, thousands of experts, a time paradox, a nuclear submarine, a cat, a crowbar, and a birthday cake. And all I had was a mouthful of air and a bad idea. I reluctantly abandoned my plan.

On the twenty-sixth of January in 1988, Australia was celebrating two hundred years since colonization. I was eight years old at the time and could not begin to comprehend the complexity of the day and what it meant to the long-suffering indigenous people of our country. Back then, it was a day viewed as celebratory; the one narrative pushed by the government and media of the time, parroted by our teachers gushing: What a special day it was! A birthday, they said. That, my eight-year-old self could understand.

Instead of hiding bodies in mass graves, corpses were triumphantly displayed, as when the Jalisco New Generation (while still part of El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel) dumped the thirty-five bodies on an avenue in Veracruz in September 2011. In reply, the Zetas scattered twenty-six corpses in Jalisco and a dozen in Sinaloa. On closer inspection, the bodies were those of ordinary citizens, not criminals: they were workers and students who had been abducted and murdered and displayed in order to strike fear in the heart of anyone who doubted the murderous resolve of the Zetas... In To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War, John Gibler writes about a related series of bizarre and violent episodes that took place in Torreón, in Coahuila state, bordering Texas: “Who would believe, for example, that the warden of a state prison would let convicted killers out at night and loan them official vehicles, automatic assault rifles, and bulletproof vests, so that they could gun down scores of innocent people in a neighboring state and then quickly hop back over the state line and into prison, behind bars, a perfect alibi. Who would believe that a paramilitary drug-trafficking organization formed by ex−Special Forces of the Mexican Army would kidnap a local cop and torture him into confessing all of the above details about the prisoners’ death squad, videotape the confession, execute the cop on camera with a shot to the heart, and then post the video on YouTube? Who could fathom that the federal attorney general would, within hours of the video-taped confession and execution being posted online, arrest the warden, and then a few days later hold a press conference fully acknowledging that the prisoners’ death squad had operated for months, killing ten people in a bar in January 2010, eight people in a bar in May 2010, and seventeen people at a birthday party in July?” Yet all of this actually happened. During April 2012, when El Chapo was at war with the Zetas, fourteen torsos — armless and legless bodies — were found in a car by the side of the road in Nuevo Laredo. Dead Zetas. Some of the torsos were in the trunk, for which there is a specific narco term: encajuelado (“trunked”; therefore, trunks trunked). Soon after, in Michoacán state, the Zetas met their match in the person of Nazario Moreno (called El Más Loco, the Craziest One), leader of the ruthless Templarios, the Knights Templar cartel, whose recruits were required to eat human flesh—their victims’— as part of their initiation rites. When Moreno was gunned down by the Mexican army in 2014, the Zetas flourished, and remain dominant. But there was a posthumous bonus for the Craziest One: he was promoted to sainthood. In and around his birthplace in Apatzingán, shrines and altars were erected to Saint Nazario, the dead capo represented as a holy figure in robes, venerated by credulous Michoacanos.

Today was my eighteenth birthday, and I had dedicated a great deal of the intervening years between the age of five and now to trying to understand the motives of human cruelty.  I came to a conclusion that there wasn’t always a reason somewhere between eight and ten.

My name is Olivia King I am five years old. My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot-pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand. “Here, Livie, I bought this for you.” She called me Livie. I was so happy. I’d never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloons wrapped around other kids’ wrists in the parking lot of Walmart, but I never dreamed I would have my very own. My very own pink balloon. I was so excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! I couldn’t believe my mother bought me something! She’d never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours. It was full of helium, and it danced and swayed and floated as I pulled it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it into the bathroom, the closet, the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room. I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother’s bedroom! My mother’s Bedroom? Where I wasn’t supposed to be? With my pink balloon… I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off of her nose. She slapped me across the face and reminded me of how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never listened! She shoved me into the hallway and slammed the door, locking my pink balloon inside with her. I wanted him back! He was my best friend! Not hers! The pink ribbon was still tied around my wrist so I pulled and pulled, trying to get my new best friend away from her. And it popped. My name is Eddie. I’m seventeen years old. My birthday is next week. I’ll be the big One-Eight. My foster dad is buying me these boots I’ve been wanting. I’m sure my friends will take me out to eat. My boyfriend will buy me a gift, maybe even take me to a movie. I’ll even get a nice little card from my foster-care worker, wishing me a happy eighteenth birthday, informing me I’ve aged out of the system. I’ll have a good time. I know I will. But there’s one thing I know for sure. I better not get any shitty-ass pink balloons!

Today is my birthday. I have existed for twenty-eight years. That is 336 months, or 10,220 days. That is one year longer than Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin lived, and five years older than my mom was when she had me. If I lived on Mercury, I’d be 116. I’d have orbited the sun that many times. On Venus, I’d be forty-five. I’d be fourteen on Mars. On Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, I wouldn’t even be one yet.

Since I started these letters, I've been a million different things, some good and some ugly. But today, on your twenty-eighth birthday, I feel like the same man I was all those years ago. Staring at you. Counting your fingers. Wondering what it is that makes you so different from the rest of the world. I don't know when it happened, but I'm happy again. I think, even if things don't stay like this, I will always carry this moment in me. How could I ever be sad, having watched my baby grow into the woman she is? January, you are twenty-eight, and today I am your father.

This is the central barrier to understanding evolution. We understand time through the experience of our own short lives. To truly imagine three and a half billion years is virtually impossible. Imagine yourself living to seventy-I mean really imagine seventy years: being born, a decade and a half of education, many more decades of employment, wars, elections, scientific discoveries, parents lost, middle age, old age-innumerable memories marked off by seventy birthdays and seventy summers and winters. Now try to imagine fifty million of those lifetimes-fifty million of them! Because that is how long life has been developing on earth. But how can you begin to conceive of such an expanse of time? Try this. If, at a modest clip-which I'd recommend, given what I'm proposing-it takes you a minute to count out loud to a hundred, it will take you almost a week of nonstop counting to reach a million. That is, counting without a single break and no sleep. If you could keep counting for twenty-four hours a day for 350 days, you'd reach fifty million. But these are not just meaningless numbers-each one of them represents a lifetime. But almost a year without sleep is inconceivable, so let's try and make it "doable", as Behe would say. Put in eight hours of counting a day, seven days a week. Take a two-week vacation each year. Under these still-harsh working conditions (no weekends off), it will now take you three years to count out these fifty million lifetimes. (You will reach, incidentally, the birth of Christ within the first half minute, and the oldest age of the earth, according to believers in a literal Genesis, within the first two minutes.) But to really comprehend this expanse of time, you would still have to be capable of imagining-as each of those numbers came tripping off your tongue, hour after hour, week after week, month after month, year after year, for three years-that each of those numbers signified a lifetime. Even if you chose to do this, and even if you were capable of the extraordinary effort of will and imagination needed to conceive of what you were actually doing, I suspect that at the end of it you would still be only a little closer to comprehending the vast amount of time involved. In all probability, you would give up long before you finished, overwhelmed by depression at your own insignificance. It is offensive to one's sense of self to imagine this huge expanse of time that came before you and within which you had no relevance. No, it is more than offensive; it is terrifying. How much easier-and how much more comforting-to just put in those first two minutes and imagine, in one way or another, a designer who placed you at the center of it all.

Antibiotics will frequently kill mitochondria along with the bacteria. In fact, the antibiotics that we have been giving unnecessarily may be a major cause not only of CFS, but the increase in many other diseases and new diseases as well. There was recently a study published that showed that women who had received eight or more doses of antibiotics before their eighteenth birthday had a dramatic increase in breast cancer.

The Eight Myths of Hanukah 1. Hanukah is the Jewish Christmas. False. How many times have I been asked, “Is Hanukah the Jewish Christmas?” Let me set the record straight. Christmas is the Jewish Christmas. Mary and Joseph were Jewish, Jesus was Jewish, and at least one of the Wise Men was Jewish — the one that brought the fur. 2. Hanukah is the holiest of Jewish holidays. False. Hanukah isn’t even a religious holiday. The holiest of Jewish holidays is April 24, Barbra Streisand’s birthday. The second holiest Jewish holiday is December 29, the wedding anniversary of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. 3. Hanukah is another Jewish holiday where they tried to kill us, they didn’t, so we eat. True. Also known as the Festival of Lights, Hanukah is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the re-dedication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the second century BCE, which brings us to ... 4. Hanukah commemorates the miracle that one day’s worth of oil lasted eight days in the Holy Temple. True. But, this is hardly a miracle because I witnessed my grandmother doing the same thing with one tea bag. 5. During Hanukah, children get a gift every night for eight days. False. If you grew up in my house, you got a gift the first night, then for seven nights, you heard about how awful it was to grow up during The Great Depression. The ritual of gift giving is actually very American, since Jewish children in this country are totally exposed to Christmas customs. 6. Hanukah is a holiday when Jewish people eat bland, colorless foods that are fried in oil and difficult to digest. True for ALL Jewish holidays. On Hanukah, we eat latkes (potato pancakes) or sufganiot, if you are Sephardic. Sufganiot are similar to jelly donuts. I am part Sephardic, so I like donuts, just not jelly ones. 7. There are many popular songs about Hanukah, and Jewish people know the words to all of them. False. Other than “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” there are no other Hanukah songs we can sing, except for “The Hanukah Song,” by Adam Sandler, which brings us to Number 8 ... 8. Steve & Eydie and Barbra Streisand have recorded Hanukah albums. SO NOT TRUE! Would you believe Steve and Eydie have recorded a Christmas album, and Barbra has recorded not one but two Christmas albums?! And all those Christmas songs we hear on the radio are mostly written, and oftentimes performed, by Jews! Oy vay! This brings us back to myth Number 1, proving once again that Christmas is the Jewish Christmas! So, from my Trailer Park to Yours, here is wishing you a very Happy Jewish Christmas and a Merry Hanukah! 261

When's your birthday?" I asked. "The twentieth of April." "A Taurus." "A what?" she asked. "Astrology. Do you follow it?" "Not only do I not follow it, I've never even heard of it." I paused, wondering if the girl was kidding, but I didn't detect a note of sarcasm in her voice. "I'm from Milwaukee- we don't believe things like that there, either. It's all hocus-pocus if you ask me." "Milwaukee's in Wisconsin. Wisconsin's capital is Madison. Its state bird is the robin and it's known as the Dairy State because it produces more cheese and milk than any other state," she said, as if reading from a teleprompter. "This thing called astrology- what is it exactly?" "That's a good question," I said. "It has something to do with the stars. I've never really understood it, either." "You mean astronomy, then?" "No, they're two different things- astrology and astronomy." "So what are you in astrology terms?" "A Scorpio." "A scorpion. In other words, you're an eight-legged, venomous creature to be wary of?" Her tone was deadpan. "No poison here, just a nice guy from Milwaukee." She let out a jovial laugh. She was a curious creature, and I was intrigued. Her manner of speech was officious and old-fashioned. She was interested and reserved, insecure and confident, coy and bold. She was unlike anyone I had ever met.

Your microbiome looks perfect,” Google tells you. “Also, blood glucose levels are good, vitamin levels fine, but an increased core temperature and IgE levels…” “Google—in plain English?” “You’ve got a virus.” “A what?” “I ran through your last forty-eight hours of meetings. It seems like you picked it up Monday, at Jonah’s birthday party. I’d like to run additional diagnostics, would you mind using the…” Well, take your pick. Alphabet’s healthcare division, called Verily Life Sciences, is developing a full range of internal and external sensors that monitor everything from blood sugar to blood chemistry. And that’s just Alphabet. The list of once multimillion-dollar medical machines now being dematerialized, demonetized, democratized, and delocalized—that is, made into portable and even wearable sensors—could fill a textbook.

Gold XL a larger penis head - Make a Male Enhancement Reviews extra muscular mushroomed searching penis imagination! Have more than one orgasms - Learn sex birthday birthday celebration secrets and techniques a few of the PC muscle and carry out for hours ejaculating regularly times.The common penis girth is eight.nine inches. A girth of approximately 6 inches may be extraordinarily enjoyable throughout the night. Find out ex

him that he couldn’t speak to Jamie. Not even to wish her a happy birthday. It wasn’t that Jamie blamed either of them for anything. They weren’t happy people — apart or together. She looked up, Mary’s voice echoing back to her as she let the recording in. Roper was snapping his fingers and waving at her.  She pulled the headphones down around her neck and sat up. ‘What is it?’ ‘You called the parents yet to follow-up?’ ‘Not yet.’ Her voice cracked a little and she coughed to cover it. ‘Good. It’s after twelve—’ he checked his watch ‘—we should get going if we’re going to catch Grace at the shelter.’ ‘Has Mary called?’ Jamie asked, taking a sizeable bite out of her bagel. She’d already eaten a bowl of granola and an apple. ‘No,’ Roper said, standing up and taking his pea coat off the back of his chair, ‘but I want to get there before she does and see her come in. Don’t want her to know we’re coming and come up with a story we can never disprove. Heroin, secrets, dead-boyfriend — there’s a lot she’s not going to want to say and I don’t need her getting any prep in before we arrive.’ Jamie inhaled deeply, letting the oxygen seep into her muscles. ‘Okay.’ ‘You call that doctor yet?’ Roper asked, throwing his coat around his shoulders. ‘No,’ Jamie said, shaking her head. ‘What the hell have you been doing all morning?’ She looked at her computer screen, at the twenty-eight windows she had open. All

The Prince alighted from his gleaming silver-blue jet, his mind firmly on the task at hand: to persuade his close friend to go to war. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, was in Crawford, Texas, in August 2002 to visit the President of the United States, his close friend George W. Bush. At the President’s ranch the two men, comfortable in one another’s company, chatted for an hour. The President was in determined mood. Bandar’s exhortation that he should not back off, that he should complete what his father had failed to do, that he should destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein once and for all, gratified the President. Satisfied by their mutual reinforcement, the dapper enigmatic Prince and the cowboy President took lunch with their wives and seven of Bandar’s eight children. A few weeks later, President Bush met the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at Camp David. The two leaders declared they had sufficient evidence that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction to justify their acting against Saddam, with or without the support of the United Nations. Prince Bandar’s role in Washington and London was unique: diplomat, peacemaker, bagman for covert CIA operations and arms dealer extraordinaire. He constructed a special relationship between Washington, Riyadh and London, and made himself very, very wealthy in the process. The £75m Airbus, painted in the colours of the Prince’s beloved Dallas Cowboys, was a gift from the British arms company BAE Systems. It was a token of gratitude for the Prince’s role, as son of the country’s Defence Minister, in the biggest arms deal the world has seen. The Al Yamamah – ‘the dove’ – deal signed between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia in 1985 was worth over £40bn. It was also arguably the most corrupt transaction in trading history. Over £1bn was paid into accounts controlled by Bandar. The Airbus – maintained and operated by BAE at least until 2007 – was a little extra, presented to Bandar on his birthday in 1988. A significant portion of the more than £1bn was paid into personal and Saudi embassy accounts at the venerable Riggs Bank opposite the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. The bank of choice for Presidents, ambassadors and embassies had close ties to the CIA, with several bank officers holding full agency security clearance. Jonathan Bush, uncle of the President, was a senior executive of the bank at the time. But Riggs and the White House were stunned by the revelation that from 1999 money had inadvertently flowed from the account of Prince Bandar’s wife to two of the fifteen Saudis among the 9/11 hijackers.

Your husband is doing this for your own good, they both concur. ‘Your own good’ was the mantra of my mother when I was growing up – it justified being force-fed laxatives once every three months, not celebrating my birthdays at school, curfews against travelling alone, refusal of permission to go to picnics. ‘Your own good’ was the reason my English teacher offered when she pulled me by the ear and led me out of the classroom, shouting rowdy girl rowdy girl rowdy girl this is for your own good and struck me with a wooden ruler. ‘Your own good’ was what justified my teenage neighbour putting his fingers inside my eight-year-old vagina to check for forest insects and bed bugs and evil imps. When I hear ‘your own good’ I am reduced to being a child again. I do not argue any more. I go silent.

Your husband is doing this for your own good, they both concur. ‘Your own good’ was the mantra of my mother when I was growing up – it justified being force-fed laxatives once every three months, not celebrating my birthdays at school, curfews against travelling alone, refusal of permission to go to picnics. ‘Your own good’ was the reason my English teacher offered when she pulled me by the ear and led me out of the classroom, shouting rowdy girl rowdy girl rowdy girl this is for your own good and struck me with a wooden ruler. ‘Your own good’ was what justified my teenage neighbour putting his fingers inside my eight-year-old vagina to check for forest insects and bed bugs and evil imps. When I hear ‘your own good’ I am reduced to being a child again. I do not argue any more. I go silent.

By 1920, he was living back home with his parents while pursuing a degree at Michigan State Agricultural College.5 Specializing in chicken breeding, he proved to be so proficient that, immediately after his graduation, he received a summer school appointment as “instructor in poultry husbandry for federal students”—young veterans attending college with governmental aid.6 In addition to his academic work, the religiously committed Huyck was active in the Student Volunteer Movement, a campaign begun in 1886 to enlist college students for missionary work abroad with the ultimate goal of bringing about (as its watchword put it) “the evangelization of the world in this generation.”7 In April 1922, just prior to his graduation from Michigan State Agricultural College and three months shy of his twenty-eighth birthday, Emory accepted the position of superintendent of the Bath Consolidated School at an annual salary of $2,300. Eight months later, two days after Christmas, Emory married Ethel Newcomb of Pierson, Michigan, six years his senior; she would also join the faculty at the newly built school, teaching “vocal music” and second grade.8

From the very beginning of their lives children are programmed to perceive the adults closest to them as unquestioned authorities, who provide orientation and set the standards for what is right and what is wrong. Children are told what to wear and when to go to bed. They are to eat what is put on the table, and anything undesirable is suppressed. Parents are always denying their children something they want to have. Even when adults take chocolate away from children, or the few euros they received from a relative for their birthday, that constitutes interference. Children must learn to accept that and trust that their parents are doing the right thing. Otherwise the discrepancy between their own desires and the discouraging behaviour of their loved ones will break them.

She pulled out her journal. "The lights-- I mean, lanterns-- always appear a month and eight days before the summer solstice," she said, checking her figures and drawings for the thousandth time. "May twelfth. Yeah," Flynn said.

Around this time, I moved out of my ancestral home in Chagrin and rented a studio apartment in Cleveland. Thus, I was able to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday in my very own place. I decided to make it a surprise party. I sent out invitations informing the guests that someone was going to take me bowling and that I wouldn’t be home until 8:00. Then I gave instructions: The guests were to come to my apartment around 7:00 and set up the food and drinks, which they were assigned to bring. The key would be left on the sill over the door so people could let themselves in. I also suggested that everyone bring a small gift that didn’t exceed ten dollars. The fifteenth of December came and everything went smoothly. Nobody had trouble finding the place because I included a map in the invitation. So everyone was there waiting for the birthday boy to make his appearance. Eight o’clock came and went, as did nine o’clock, but the birthday boy never showed up. Finally, at around 10 P.M., the guests left, convinced that I’d given the wrong date. I hadn’t, and when they called the next day to see what had happened, I told them quite simply, “I never got an invitation.