Kitchen Cabinet Quotes

The kitchen was just as empty, even the refrigerator gone, the chairs, the table--the kitchen cabinets stood open, their bare shelves reminder her of a nursery rhyme. She cleared her throat. "What would demons," she said, "want with our microwave?

Inside the house, I turned on the kitchen light, revealing the photographs stuck every which way all over the cabinets, and then switched on the hall light. In my head, I heard Beck say to my small nine-year-old self, 'Why do we need every light in the house on? Are you signaling to aliens?

Love was there in my empty bed. It was piled up in the records Lauren bought me when we were teenagers. It was in the smudged recipe cards from my mum in between the pages of cookbooks in my kitchen cabinet. Love was in the bottle of gin tied with a ribbon that India had packed me off with; in the smeary photo-strips with curled corners that would end up stuck to my fridge. It was in the note that lay on the pillow next to me, the one I would fold up and keep in the shoebox of all the other notes she had written before. I woke up safe in my one-woman boat. I was gliding into a new horizon; floating in a sea of love. There it was. Who knew? It had been there all along.

Bryce had ground the block of obsidian salt down at some point—presumably using her fucking food processor. For something she’d dropped ten grand on, Bryce didn’t treat it with any particular reverence. She’d chucked it into a kitchen cabinet as if it were a bag of chips.

[The kitchen] was also messy--delightfully so, thought Jane--and it didn't look as though lots of cooking went on there. There was a laptop computer on the counter with duck stickers on it, the spice cabinet was full of Ben's toy trucks, and Jane couldn't spot a cookbook anywhere. This is the kitchen of a Thinker, she decided, and promised herself that she'd never bother with cooking, either.

The moving parts of the house were all silent, its surfaces smooth. The closet doors had no handles. None of the woodwork had fixtures. Drawers had gentle indents. The kitchen cabinets pushed open and shut with a click. Franklin, the whole house was on Zoloft. You

She moved suddenly, planting her hands against the kitchen floor. Throwing back her head, she screamed, and that sound was full of sorrow and heartbreak. It started as a low tremble under my feet and then increased, shaking the kitchen table and rattling the plates and cups in the cabinets. Then it was a rumble, causing the house to groan and small clouds of dust to drop from the ceiling. The table scuttled over the floor. A chair toppled over and then another. Somewhere in the living room, a window shattered. Kat was going to bring the house down. “Shit.

THE BOUNTY In her kitchen, she saw many things she would like to eat. On the counter, there was a bunch of new bananas, yellow as a Van Gogh chair, and two apples, pristine. The cabinet was open and she saw a box of crackers, a new box of cereal, a tube of curved chips. She felt overwhelmed, seeing all of the food there, that it was all hers. And there was more in the refrigerator! There were juices, half a melon, a dozen bagels, salmon, a steak, yogurt in a dozen colors. It would take her a week to eat all of this food. She does not deserve this, she thought. It really isn't fair, she thought. You're correct, God said, and then struck dead 65,000 Malaysians.

And so once again peace reigned in his kitchen cabinet. The voices he'd been hearing as he lie in bed stopped. His doctor took him off the Lithium. Tho every now and again he'd hear what seemed to be the sounds of love making emanating from the kitchen . . . and the muffled sobs of a can of refried beans. Probably just the Mexican couple in the apartment upstairs. (From "Kitchen Cabinet Confidential")

Neither of us ever threw anything away. We made a lot of mix tapes while we were together. Tapes for making out, tapes for dancing, tapes for falling asleep. Tapes for doing the dishes, for walking the dog. I kept them all. I have them piled up on my bookshelves, spilling out of my kitchen cabinets, scattered all over the bedroom floor. I don’t even have pots or pans in my kitchen, just that old boom-box on the counter, next to the sink. So many tapes.

Before the accident—BTA—I didn't know anger and pain could feel the same. I didn't think physical pain and emotional pain could simply be extensions of each other. Now, I could hardly separate the two. And I wanted to crash my fist into a kitchen cabinet or my knee into a chair. Find a more harmful way to stim. Either make the pain worse or make it go away.

It was a “severe” disappointment to Henry Wilson who laid it all at the door of Kitchener and the Cabinet for having sent only four divisions instead of six. Had all six been present, he said with that marvelous incapacity to admit error that was to make him ultimately a Field Marshal, “this retreat would have been an advance and defeat would have been a victory.

Three or four days later he was still thinking about seal flipper pie. Remembered the two raw eggs Petal gave him. That he invested with pathetic meaning. 'Petal,' said Quoyle to Wavey, 'hated to cook. Hardly ever did.' Thought of the times he had fixed dinner for her, set put his stupid candles, folded the napkins as though they were important, waited and finally ate alone, the radio on for company. And later dined with the children, shoveling in canned spaghetti, scraping baby food off small chins. 'Once she gave me two eggs. Raw eggs for a present.' He had made an omelet of them, hand-fed her as thought she were a nestling bird. And saved the shells in a paper cup on top of the kitchen cabinet. Where they still must be.

But the kitchen will not come into its own again until it ceases to be a status symbol and becomes again a workshop. It may be pastel. It may be ginghamed as to curtains and shining with copper like a picture in a woman's magazine. But you and I will know it chiefly by its fragrances and its clutter. At the back of the stove will sit a soup kettle, gently bubbling, one into which every day are popped leftover bones and vegetables to make stock for sauces or soup for the family. Carrots and leeks will sprawl on counters, greens in a basket. There will be something sweet-smelling twirling in a bowl and something savory baking in the oven. Cabinet doors will gape ajar and colored surfaces are likely to be littered with salt and pepper and flour and herbs and cheesecloth and pot holders and long-handled forks. It won't be neat. It won't even look efficient. but when you enter it you will feel the pulse of life throbbing from every corner. The heart of the home will have begun once again to beat.

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Uncommon Prostitues I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Christmas Dinner MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama. P.S. I hope your mom is doing better. I'm so sorry you have to spend today in a hospital. I really do wish I could send you both a plate of turkey. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Re: Christmas Dinner YOU feel sorry for ME? I am not the one who has never tasted bread pudding. The hospital was the same. I won't bore you with the details. Though I had to wait an hour to catch the bus back,and it started raining.Now that I'm at the flat, my father has left for the hospital. We're each making stellar work of pretending the other doesn't exist. P.S. Mum says to tell you "Merry Christmas." So Merry Christmas from my mum, but Happy Christmas from me. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: SAVE ME Worst.Dinner.Ever.It took less than five minutes for things to explode. My dad tried to force Seany to eat the green bean casserole, and when he wouldn't, Dad accused Mom of not feeding my brother enough vegetables. So she threw down her fork,and said that Dad had no right to tell her how to raise her children. And then he brought out the "I'm their father" crap, and she brought out the "You abandoned them" crap,and meanwhile, the WHOLE TIME my half-dead Nanna is shouting, "WHERE'S THE SALT! I CAN'T TASTE THE CASSEROLE! PASS THE SALT!" And then Granddad complained that Mom's turkey was "a wee dry," and she lost it. I mean,Mom just started screaming. And it freaked Seany out,and he ran to his room crying, and when I checked on him, he was UNWRAPPING A CANDY CANE!! I have no idea where it came from. He knows he can't eat Red Dye #40! So I grabbed it from him,and he cried harder, and Mom ran in and yelled at ME, like I'd given him the stupid thing. Not, "Thank you for saving my only son's life,Anna." And then Dad came in and the fighting resumed,and they didn't even notice that Seany was still sobbing. So I took him outside and fed him cookies,and now he's running aruond in circles,and my grandparents are still at the table, as if we're all going to sit back down and finish our meal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY? And now Dad is knocking on my door. Great. Can this stupid holiday get any worse??

My twin sisters weren’t precisely human. They’d begun life as a pair of goat kids before a fair one had had too much wine and enchanted them on a lark. It was slow going, but I reminded myself that at least it was going. This time last year they hadn’t been house-trained. And it worked in their favor that their transformative enchantment had rendered them more or less indestructible: I’d seen March survive eating a broken pot, poison oak, deadly nightshade, and several unfortunate salamanders without any ill effects. For all my concern, March jumping off cabinets posed more danger to the kitchen furniture.

Madeleine Rose Manchester had absolutely no intention of invading the White House. But she knew seven different ways she could do it if she'd wanted to. After all, Logan had lived there less than a year, and already he and Maddie had found four tunnels, two pseudo-secret passageways, and a cabinet near the kitchen that smelled faintly of cheese and only partially blocked an old service elevator that really wasn't as boarded up as everybody thought.

Tell Daddy to turn off the broccoli! It’s probably burned!” Casey shouts something back, maybe that the kitchen cabinets are on fire, but Yvette backs out onto the road and drives off.

It was a truth universally acknowledged that a person in want of plastic baggies need only look in the Taft family kitchen. Aunt Olivia was the queen of Ziplocs. She'd taken over Lillian's cabinets and had entire drawers dedicated to them - every size, every type, a year's supply of each at least.

Eli was fascinated by kitchens. By the way people ordered their lives, the cabinets they used, the places they kept food, and the food they choose to keep. He’d spent the last decade studying people, and it was amazing how much could be gleaned from their homes. Their bedrooms, and bathrooms, and closets, of course, but also their kitchens.

Marlena and I were very different, but sometimes, when we were together, we could erase our separate histories just by talking, sharing a joke or a look. But in the kitchen with Mom, the kitchen that was always clean, where there was always something to eat, where the water flowed predictably from the tap and behind every cabinet door were dishes, only dishes, I saw how wrong I was to feel like Marlena and I had so much in common, and how lucky. Because here was the difference that mattered. My skinny mom with her Chardonnay smell and her forgetting to unplug the flat iron, with her corny jokes about broccoli farts and her teeth bared in anger and her cleaning gloves in the backseat of the car, my mom who refused to stop loving me, who made dumb mistakes and drank too much and was my twin in laughter, my mom who would never, ever, leave, who I trusted so profoundly that a world without her in it exceeded the limits of my imagination. That was the difference, and it was huge, and my never seeing it before is something that I still regret.

There had been a time, once, when he had not lived like this, a .32 under his pillow, a lunatic in the back yard firing off a pistol for God knew what purpose, some other nut or perhaps the same one imposing a brain-print of his own shorted-out upstairs on an incredibly expensive and valued cephscope that everyone in the house, plus all their friends, loved and enjoyed. In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, or even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.

What are you thinking? Sandwiches?” Finn asked in a hopeful voice. “No. I’m in the mood for something sweet.” I grabbed the butter out of the fridge, then rummaged through the cabinets. Flour, oats, dried apricots, golden raisins, brown sugar, vanilla. I pulled them out, along with some mixing cups, a baking pan, a spatula, and a bowl. Finn settled himself at the kitchen table and drank his coffee while I worked. By the time Jo-Jo walked back into the kitchen, I was sliding the batter into the oven. “Whatcha making?” the dwarf asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Apricot bars,

Trina stared into her open kitchen cabinets. She was two and a half days into her pre-date-night ritual fast, and she was about to crack. Technically, she wasn’t going out on a date Saturday night, but Juliet was determined to have a man in her bed by the end of the evening. To be honest, Trina wasn’t really looking forward to tomorrow night’s manhunt. Sure, she was desperate for some hot monkey sex, but the thought of a one-night-stand was quickly losing its appeal. She wanted more than just plain, old sex. She wanted romance -- preferably with someone for whom she didn’t have to fast for three days to attract.

It was not the house of someone who liked books. It did not have a well-stocked library. It was not even stuffed with books. Thomas could not see any part of the house that was not mostly book. Books rose from the floor to the ceiling in unruly, tottering towers. Books held up tables and chairs—and sat in the chairs, at the tables, as though quite ready for supper to be served, so long as supper was more books. They sprawled over the dining table like a feast of many colors. Books climbed the stairs, ran up and down the hallways, curled up before the fireplace, were wedged into the cabinets beside cups and saucers, held open doors and locked them shut. They left no room on the sofa to sit, nor in the kitchen to stand, nor on the floor to lie down. Books had already taken every territory and occupied it.

Following her instructions, I joined her in the chopping and mixing. The magical smell of pickling spices wound around us and it wasn't long before we were in another world. I was suddenly immersed in the hand-written recipes Mother resurrected from the back of the Hoosier cabinet--in the cheesecloth filled with mustard seed and pungent dill. As we followed the recipes her mother had followed and her mother before that, we talked--as the afternoon wore on I was listening to preserve the stories in my mind. 'I can remember watching my grandmother and mother rushing around this same old kitchen, putting up all kinds of vegetables--their own hand-sown, hand-picked crops--for the winter. My grandmother would tell her stories about growing up right here, on this piece of land--some were hilarious and some were tragic.' Pots still steamed on the stove, but Mother's attention seemed directed backwards as she began to speak about the past. She spoke with a slow cadence, a rhythm punctuated (or maybe inspired) by the natural symphony around us.

The kitchen of the Big House was always one of my favorite places. Airy and sunny. No modern cabinets or anything like that. Just a room full of windows, set into wise, worn walls.

...That Great Cocktail Cabinet in the Sky...

The kitchen was a ’60s wood-paneling affair, with a linoleum floor, yellow countertops, and every inch of wall space covered in oak cabinets.

Hi, I’m not answering my phone right now because I’m building kitchen cabinets at 111 Main Street. I’m putting my heart and soul into these cabinets so I won’t be returning calls until I’m finished with the job. Please know I will give the same attention and care to your work, as well. If you need to talk to me feel free to come by 111 Main Street during my lunch break at noon.

Swap out one of these men with the mute, and I’ll be right as rain,” Randy said from his spot near the kitchen entrance. “Thought we were besties,” Bride mumbled into the shot of rum she’d pilfered from Randy’s cabinet.

...Violet followed her friend into the massive kitchen with its Restoration Hardware fixture and faux-weathered, farmhouse-style cabinets. Its perplexed Violet, the way people tried to make the insides of new homes look old.

I rooted around the kitchen for a coffee pot, confused by the prehistoric model sitting in one of the cabinets. I brushed off the dust and plugged it in; it took me nearly thirty minutes to figure out how to turn the damn thing on, and once I had two cups of coffee, they had the consistency of burnt mud. “Cheers,” I said, clinking my mug against Molly’s. “Don’t actually drink it though.” She sniffed the top of the mug. “Just inhale deeply and hope you get some caffeine through your nasal passages.

If you are like many people, you can see for yourself. Just go to your kitchen and look in your pantry. It is probably full of items bought in the distant past. In this you are not alone. Kitchen cabinets across the United States are full of soups, jams, and canned food that have not been used for ages. So common is this phenomenon that food researchers have a name for it: they call these items cabinet castaways. Some estimates suggest that one in ten items bought in the grocery store is destined to become a cabinet castaway.

But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it.

I grabbed a cloud-shaped oven mitt, opened the oven door, and took out the apricot bars. The smell of warm fruit, sugar, and melted butter filled the kitchen, along with a blast of heat. A combination I never grew tired of, especially on a cold, gray night like this one. I grabbed another oven mitt, set it on the table, then put the pan on top of it. Finn’s fingers crept toward the edge of the container, but I smacked his hand away. “I’m not done with them yet,” I said. “Come on, Gin,” he whined. “I just want a taste.” “And you’re just going to have to wait, like the rest of us.” Jo-Jo chuckled, amused by our squabbling. I moved over to the cabinets and got out four bowls, some spoons, and a couple of knives. I also grabbed a gallon of vanilla bean ice cream out of the freezer. After the apricot bars had cooled enough so they wouldn’t immediately fall apart, I cut out big chunks of the bars, dumped them in the bowls, and topped them all with two scoops of the ice cream. My own version of a quick homemade cobbler. Jo-Jo swallowed a mouthful of the confection and sighed. “Heaven, pure, sweet heaven.

For Wendy and Sam, the best rule was "everything has a home.” We made a list of their main household items and where they went - for example, pill bottles in the bathroom medicine cabinet, laundry in the hamper, and food in the kitchen cabinets. This may seem like a fundamental rule that everyone learns as a child, but many hoarders didn’t pick that up either because they grew up in hoarding houses themselves, or they grew up in traumatic households where finding a meal and avoiding a beating was a daily reality. Cleaning was the least of their worries.

Did you consider when you went headlong into a war like this,’ Kitchener asked the cabinet, ‘that you were without an army? Did you not realize the war was likely to last for years and require tens of thousands of soldiers?’ He was soon permitted to ask for volunteers among the male adult population.

I had the brilliant idea of making gyeranjjim, a steamed, savory egg custard usually served as a side dish at Korean restaurants bringing their A game. Nutritious with a mild and soothing flavor, it was one of my favorites growing up. I looked up a recipe online. I cracked four eggs into a small bowl and beat them with a fork. I searched the kitchen cabinets, found one of my mother's earthenware pots, and heated it over the stove, adding the beaten eggs, salt, and three cups of water. I put the lid on and after fifteen minutes returned to find it had come out perfectly soft and jiggly, like a pale yellow, silken tofu.

But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not.

Did Grandma cry?” Ma flicked off the wipers. “I don’t know, maybe. Not in front of me.” “She didn’t even cry for her own kid?” “She was angry about it—did a lot of slamming, I remember. Pot lids, kitchen cabinets. Eddie was kind of wild. He always took chances.” “Risks,” I said. I hated Grandma, that cold bitch. “Julie Andrews played a good part in that movie today, didn’t she?” Ma said. “She seems so sweet.” “She’s probably a big spoiled snot in real life.” I clicked the radio back on and twisted the knob until I found W-EAS. A song ended and Jack came on. I turned it up loud; his voice filled the car. “The eyebrows, maybe,” Ma said. “What?” “He resembles Eddie a little around the eyebrows. Those blue eyes that look like they’re cooking up trouble.

Ma kept the alcohol for company in the dining room china cabinet. All the sweet after-dinner liqueurs nestle there together. But there is one bottle she never knew about right here in the kitchen. I reach deep into the cabinets and remove Dad's hidden bottle of Lagavulin. I set a tumbler on the counter and pour him two fingers of scotch. 'This is a tumbler, watch it tumble,' he said. The golden brown liquid, more gold than brown, somewhere between weak tea and apple juice. I stare at it. Nothing. Out loud I say, "This is a tumbler, watch it tumble," an incantation or a toast or both, and drink it down. It's like drinking a handful of matches. It burns and then smokes. I fight back a cough. There's a note of something deep and earthy, like beets or truffles, which then vanishes, leaving only a palate seared clean.

Grandma, he had often wanted to say, Is this where the world began? For surely it had begun in no other than a place like this. The kitchen, without doubt, was the center of creation, all things revolved about it; it was the pediment that sustained the temple. Eyes shut to let his nose wander, he snuffed deeply. He moved in the hell-fire steams and sudden baking-powder flurries of snow in this miraculous climate where Grandma, with the look of the Indies in her eyes and the flesh of two warm hens in her bodice, Grandma of the thousand arms, shook, basted, whipped, beat, minced, diced, peeled, wrapped, salted, stirred. Blind, he touched his way to the pantry door. A squeal of laughter rang from the parlor, teacups tinkled. But he moved on into the cool underwater green and wild-persimmon country where the slung and hanging odor of creamy bananas ripened silently and bumped his head. Gnats fizzed angrily about vinegar cruets and his ears. He opened his eyes. He saw bread waiting to be cut into slices of warm summer cloud, doughnuts strewn like clown hoops from some edible game. The faucets turned on and off in his cheeks. Here on the plum-shadowed side of the house with maple leaves making a creek-water running in the hot wind at the window he read spice-cabinet names.

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, experts advised men to have their kitchens painted apple-green. The experts believed that apple-green quieted nervous people, and especially wives beginning to think of suffrage, of careers beyond the home. Today the explorer of color schemes finds in old houses and apartments the apple-green paint still gracing the inside of the cabinet under the kitchen sink, and the hallways of old police stations and insane asylums.

In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, on even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It lashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that.

Carnage, in the meantime, was busy opening and closing every cabinet in Enthrall’s kitchen. “What are you looking for?” Destroy asked irritatedly. Carnage mimed something breaking over the skillet he cooked in, that made no sense to Destroy. “Huh?” Destroy asked. Frustrated, Carnage tucked his hands under his arm pits and squawked, which sent Lily into peals of laughter, which made Carnage do it even louder and more animatedly walking around in a circle as he did so, grinning at his daughter while she laughed harder. “Eggs?” Destroy asked.

We paid that gardener three dollars an hour and all he did was sneak in here and drink up my Scotch. The sitter we had before we got Mrs. Henlein used to water my bourbon, and I don’t have to remind you about Rosemary. The cook before Rosemary not only drank everything in my liquor cabinet but she drank all the rum, kirsch, sherry, and wine that we had in the kitchen for cooking. Then, there’s that Polish woman we had last summer. Even that old laundress. And the painters. I think they must have put some kind of a mark on my door. I think the agency must have checked me off as an easy touch.

Jim walked into the kitchen. He was wearing a white towel around his hips and nothing else. His skin glistened with dampness—he had obviously just taken a shower. I stared at him in horror. He nodded to my aunt, my mother, and the two other women. “Ladies.” Then he walked to my silverware drawer, got a fork, took a plate out of my cabinet, walked to the breadbox, speared the steak with his fork, put it on the plate, turned around and walked out. This did not just happen. It did not happen. Aulia looked at me with eyes as big as dessert plates and mouthed, “Wow.” All four of them stared at me.

But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.

to look around. At first sight, the apartment was perfectly ordinary. He made a quick circuit of the living room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. The place was tidy enough, but with a few items strewn here and there, the sort of things that might be left lying around by a busy person—a magazine, a half-finished crossword puzzle, a book left open on a night table. Abby had the usual appliances—an old stove and a humming refrigerator, a microwave oven with an unpronounceable brand name, a thirteen-inch TV on a cheap stand, a boom box near a modest collection of CDs. There were clothes in her bedroom closet and silverware, plates, and pots and pans in her kitchen cabinets. He began to wonder if he’d been unduly suspicious. Maybe Abby Hollister was who she said she was, after all. And he’d taken a considerable risk coming here. If he was caught inside her apartment, all his plans for the evening would be scotched. He would end up in a holding cell facing charges that would send him back to prison for parole violation. All because he’d gotten a bug up his ass about some woman he hardly knew, a stranger who didn’t mean anything. He decided he’d better get the hell out. He was retracing his steps through the living room when he glanced at the magazine tossed on the sofa. Something about it seemed wrong. He moved closer and took a better look. It was People, and the cover showed two celebrities whose recent marriage had already ended in divorce. But on the cover the stars were smiling over a caption that read, Love At Last. He picked up the magazine and studied it in the trickle of light through the filmy curtains. The date was September of last year. He put it down and looked at the end tables flanking the sofa. For the first time he noticed a patina of dust on their surfaces. The apartment hadn’t been cleaned in some time. He went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator. It seemed well stocked, but when he opened the carton of milk and sniffed, he discovered water inside—which was just as well, since the milk’s expiration period had ended around the time that the People cover story had been new. Water in the milk carton. Out-of-date magazine on the sofa. Dust everywhere, even coating the kitchen counters. Abby didn’t live here. Nobody did. This apartment was a sham, a shell. It was a dummy address, like the dummy corporations his partner had set up when establishing the overseas bank accounts. It could pass inspection if somebody came to visit, assuming the visitor didn’t look too closely, but it wasn’t meant to be used. Now that he thought about it, the apartment was remarkable for what

Dashiel’s jacket slid off his shoulders to land on the floor as he headed straight to the kitchen, fumbled in the cabinet for a glass and poured sake into it until the liquid spilt over the brim onto the counter. His hand shook as he picked up the glass, spilling more of the sake to trickle between his knuckles as he brought it to his lips. A single droplet sloshed onto his tongue. The sweet nectar of oblivion. The harbinger of a fog rolling in to sweep away the pain in favor of blissful stupor— —he hurled the glass across the room. It shattered on impact with the far sturdier window glass, and a hundred tiny shards joined the sake in decorating the floor.

Dear Complete Darkness, The raindrops on the window represent my tears. I am twelve-years- old with tons and tons of shadows creeping all around me. I do not know where he is taking me, but I know where I come from. I come from the darkness with maybe a beam of light every now and then. I come from cracked pipes scattered everywhere and syringes stuck in my mother’s arm after she collapsed on the dirty floor. I come from a mother who put her faith in drugs and doesn’t give a shit about me. I come from my safe place as I take cover in the kitchen cabinet, rocking back and forth until the coast is clear. I come from sleepless nights, taking advantage of the moonlight while I close my eyes, pretending like I am hugging and kissing the moon. I come from making wishes on every dandelion I stumble across. I come from teaching myself how to read and write and learning how to survive. I come from never having light in my life until Kace was born. Now that Kace has been taken from me, I am in complete darkness. I am back to where I started from, and that is—I come from the darkness where there is no beam of light. I come from not knowing where I am going, but I know the moon will follow me. Well, I hope it does, but sometimes I think the moon forgets about me too—then once again, I am in complete darkness without a flicker of light.

People who learned Eric and I wanted to adopt a child often told us stories of adoptions gone wrong. The adopted child incapable of attachment. Who became a drug addict, a runaway, who drained bank accounts, ruined marriages. "I have a friend who adopted," these stories began. "It was a nightmare."... And their stories did make me afraid, convinced me I was the vulnerable one whose life was at risk. Listening, I'd forget the abandoned, the neglected, the children curled on the floor of some empty-cabinet kitchen or crying in some school bathroom stall or shaking in some crib. I'd forget that these children belong to all of us. If they wield knives in the dark or hit heads against walls or refuse to speak, they signal our failure, not theirs.

She's always sniffing the bottles in the spice cabinet." I didn't know she'd even noticed. At first it was just curiosity; why did fennel and cumin, identical twins, have such opposing personalities? I had crushed the seeds beneath my fingertips, where the scents lingered for hours. Another day I'd opened a bottle of nutmeg, startled when the little spheres came rattling out in a mothball-scented cloud. How could something so delicate have such a ferocious smell? And I watched, fascinated, as the supple, plump, purple vanilla beans withered into brittle pods and surrendered their perfume to the air. The spices were all so interesting; it was impossible to walk through the kitchen without opening the cupboard to find out what was going on in there.

Sue stepped into a haven that smelled of candles and lemon-scented dish soap, a cabinet of curiosities, one of which was the bathtub smack dab in the middle of the small kitchen. Bob Roy’s railroad flat was four tight, connected rooms, each stuffed with koombies, knickknacks, doodads, furniture pieces of any style, shelves, books, photos in frames, trophies bought from flea markets, old records, small lamps, and calendars from decades before. “I know,” he said. “It looks like I sell magic potions in here, like I’m an animated badger from a Disney cartoon.” He lit a burner on the stove with a huge kitchen match, then filled a shiny, Olde English–style kettle with water from the tap. As he prepared cups on a tray he said, “Tea in minutes, titmouse. Make a home for yourself.

She didn’t understand love, not the golden, shimmering, romance-novel stuff that existed between mates. She was skeptical of it, and had never been one to pretend that it existed just for the sake of excitement. She didn’t know what it looked like, what it felt like…at least, she hadn’t. But she realized, amid the dancing tendrils of ivy that climbed the gazebo, that love – that good, golden kind she’d always discounted – didn’t arrive with a blast of trumpets and an earth-shattering epiphany. It was earned, formed, created, day by day, a little at a time. And it looked like Mike eating toast over her kitchen sink, felt like his hand smoothing her hair back off her face, sounded like his sudden shout of laughter when she spilled a whole sack of flour out of the top cabinet down onto her head in his kitchen, tasted like the kiss he used to make up for it.

After Ben leaves, I head back upstairs to my room, only to find Dad in the kitchen. He has his back toward me, sneaking a bag of Bugles from one of the baskets above the cabinets. “Caught you,” I say, switching on the light, making him jump. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asks, keeping his voice low. “Shouldn’t you?” I give him a pointed look. “Probably, but your mom actually feel asleep tonight—probably the first night all week. Meanwhile, I’m too hungry to nod off.” “So, where does that leave us?” I ask, eyeing his bag of Bugles. “Can you be trusted?” “That depends. Are you willing to share?” I smile. “Good hiding spot, by the way. Nobody ever uses those baskets.” “That’s what you think.” He gazes down the hall to make sure the coast is clear and then snags a bag of Hershey’s Kisses from one of the other four overhead baskets. We park ourselves at the kitchen island and rip both bags open. Five full minutes of lusty devouring pass before either of us speaks.

There had been a time, once, when he had not lived like this, a .32 under his pillow, a lunatic in the back yard firing off a pistol for God knew what purpose, some other nut or perhaps the same one imposing a brain-print of his own shorted-out upstairs on an incredibly expensive and valued cephscope that everyone in the house, plus all their friends, loved and enjoyed. In former days Bob Arctor had run his affairs differently: there had been a wife much like other wives, two small daughters, a stable household that got swept and cleaned and emptied out daily, the dead newspapers not even opened carried from the front walk to the garbage pail, or even, sometimes, read. But then one day, while lifting out an electric corn popper from under the sink, Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the garage, the radiant heating system, the front yard, the fence, the whole fucking place and everyone in it. He wanted a divorce; he wanted to split. And so he had, very soon. And entered, by degrees, a new and somber life, lacking all of that. Probably he should have regretted his decision. He had not. That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.

Flour on the floor makes my sandals slip and I tumble into your arms. Too hot to bake this morning but blueberries begged me to fold them into moist muffins. Sticks of rhubarb plotted a whole pie. The windows are blown open and a thickfruit tang sneaks through the wire screen and into the home of the scowly lady who lives next door. Yesterday, a man in the city was rescued from his apartment which was filled with a thousand rats. Something about being angry because his pet python refused to eat. He let the bloom of fur rise, rise over the little gnarly blue rug, over the coffee table, the kitchen countertops and pip through each cabinet, snip at the stumpy bags of sugar, the cylinders of salt. Our kitchen is a riot of pots, wooden spoons, melted butter. So be it. Maybe all this baking will quiet the angry voices next door, if only for a brief whiff. I want our summers to always be like this—a kitchen wrecked with love, a table overflowing with baked goods warming the already warm air. After all the pots are stacked, the goodies cooled, and all the counters wiped clean—let us never be rescued from this mess.

You know what? You're kind of growing on me too." "Like mold?" I ask. "No, you smell too good," he says, turning his back to me. "I know your kitchen is well equipped. I hope you have a rice steamer." "Duh," I say, mentally kicking myself for my unprofessional response. "Of course I do." I walk over to the cabinet and step up onto my toes, but I can't reach the damn contraption. Charles steps up behind me, reaches over my head, and grabs it before it tumbles on my head. For two brief seconds, his body presses into mine, his hands steadying my waist. I swear he's breathing me in. And I'm doing the same. He grabs the steamer, sets it on the counter. But he only shifts slightly, and there's clearly something wrong with my legs; they won't budge. I think I may be paralyzed. "Did my mother make you the perfume you're wearing?" he asks, his breath on my neck. "Uh, yeah, she did." "The base notes smell delicious on you," he says, his voice husky and hot. My spine tingles. A drop of perspiration beads on my forehead. I clamp my lips together before I tell him he smells delicious too and that he's invaded my thoughts ever since I first met him on the street.

Modern society is incredibly complex, complex even beyond human comprehension, if we grant its premises—property, "production for the sake of production," competition, capital accumulation, exploitation, finance, centralization, coercion, bureaucracy and the domination of man by man. Linked to every one of these premises are the institutions that actualize it—offices, millions of "personnel," forms, immense tons of paper, desks, typewriters, telephones, and, of course, rows upon rows of filing cabinets. As in Kafka's novels, these things are real but strangely dreamlike, indefinable shadows on the social landscape. The economy has a greater reality to it and is easily mastered by the mind and senses, but it too is highly intricate—if we grant that buttons must be styled in a thousand different forms, textiles varied endlessly in kind and pattern to create the illusion of innovation and novelty, bathrooms filled to overflowing with a dazzling variety of pharmaceuticals and lotions, and kitchens cluttered with an endless number of imbecile appliances. If we single out of this odious garbage one or two goods of high quality in the more useful categories and if we eliminate the money economy, the state power, the credit system, the paperwork and the policework required to hold society in an enforced state of want, insecurity and domination, society would not only become reasonably human but also fairly simple.

Tips for Attending a Dinner Party When Your World Has Ended and Another World Is Just Beginning Savor every little spoonful. Put your fork down between bites and actually listen to the conversation bubbling around you. Remember, you’re here for the experience. At the end of your long, languorous evening, should your host refuse you once, even twice, persevere—wash as many dishes as you can! Relish the feeling of the warm water, the steam on your face, the easy certainty of a dirty bowl made clean again. There is always work to be done, so why not do it? Everything can suddenly be taken away, like we’re just birds flying blissfully into a pane of glass. Enjoy the flavor of these intimate kitchen conversations. Ask more questions than you provide answers. When you do speak about yourself, don’t rehash old party material. Be vulnerable! And remember, before you ask your host where to put things, make sure to look in the cabinets and drawers. She won’t mind if her sugar bowl is put away in the wrong place when she wakes up to a kitchen she didn’t have to clean. As for you, you will probably wake up tomorrow, too. The sun will probably rise. Breath will probably move in and out of your lungs, blood will probably pump despite your amazing broken heart. Right now, you have a body, a mind, and a memory that extends backward through time’s infinite doorways. You are an everyday miracle. Enjoy life. Because even with the promise of forever, nothing lasts.

... - the Age of Anxiety, dating from around August 1945, is twenty three years old this very month - and her daily life is in essence a sandbagging operation against its seas and their tides. But this is worry and it is a little different from anxirty: Particular rather than pervasive, it arrives unannounced, without anxiety's harbingers, dread and forboding, the fearful tea in which we steep awaiting oblivion. Instead, worry turns up on the door step, the overbearing, passive aggressive out-of-town relative who insists he "won't be any trouble" even as he displaces every known routine and custom of the house for days and weeks on end; as he expropriates the sofa, the bathroom, the contents of the liqour cabinet and cigarette carton, and monopolises the telephone and the ear of anyone within shouting distance. Worry displaces the entire mood, the entire ethos of the house - even if that mood hitherto consisted largely of anxiety - and replaces it with something more substantive, more real than mere mood. You would be mightily pleased to have ordinary anxiety back in residence, for under worry there is no peace whatsoever, not even the peace of cynicism, pessimism or despair. Even when the rest of the world is abed, worry is awake, plundering the kitchen cupboards, raiding the refrigerator, playing the hifi, watching the late show until the national anthem closes the broadcast day; then noisily treading the halls, standing in your bedroom door, wondering if by any chance you are still up (knowing that of course you are), breathing and casting its shadow upon you, the silhouette of its slope-shouldered hulk and towering black wings.

The first thing I want to say about Boyfriend is that he’s an extraordinarily decent human being. He’s kind and generous, funny and smart, and when he’s not making you laugh, he’ll drive to the drugstore at two a.m. to get you that antibiotic you just can’t wait until morning for. If he happens to be at Costco, he’ll text to ask if you need anything, and when you reply that you just need some laundry detergent, he’ll bring home your favorite meatballs and twenty jugs of maple syrup for the waffles he makes you from scratch. He’ll carry those twenty jugs from the garage to your kitchen, pack nineteen of them neatly into the tall cabinet you can’t reach, and place one on the counter, accessible for the morning. He’ll also leave love notes on your desk, hold your hand and open doors, and never complain about being dragged to family events because he genuinely enjoys hanging out with your relatives, even the nosy or elderly ones. For no reason at all, he’ll send you Amazon packages full of books (books being the equivalent of flowers to you), and at night you’ll both curl up and read passages from them aloud to each other, pausing only to make out. While you’re binge-watching Netflix, he’ll rub that spot on your back where you have mild scoliosis, and when he stops, and you nudge him, he’ll continue rubbing for exactly sixty more delicious seconds before he tries to weasel out without your noticing (you’ll pretend not to notice). He’ll let you finish his sandwiches and sentences and sunscreen and listen so attentively to the details of your day that, like your personal biographer, he’ll remember more about your life than you will. If this portrait sounds skewed, it is.

May 19th 2031_ Eleven months before_ I opened my eyes to see darkness and the sound of my alarm beeping. 0400 hours. I turned it off and got up. I looked for my glasses on my bedside cabinet and put them on. "Alexa, Good morning roll," I said loudly in the dark room. The lights came on and the curtains opened, the speaker turned on and started playing my Spotify playlist. I slowly got dressed and made myself breakfast. After breakfast, I downed a 500ml bottle of zero coke. I leaned to one side and burped. I looked around my kitchen. The dark marble counter and white cupboards, walls and ceiling matched with each other. I looked outside the kitchen window at the traffic down below. I was about 6 floors high, if you were to jump off from that high, there is a very high chance you might die. And if you were lucky to survive, you would be immobilised from your broken legs and hip and ribs. I turned around and sat on the black leathery sofa and switched on the TV. I looked on Netflix at old World War Two films that I could watch before bed. I scrolled through the list. From 'Dunkirk' to 'Unbroken' to a lot more films. I chose a couple and switched the TV onto the news. The reporter said that there was a knife crime in Redding earlier. I sighed but was relieved that it wasn't me. It is a low chance that I would get murdered by someone or people with knives in England but it's still a possibility. I turned the TV off and looked at my phone. There was nothing new on Discord and nothing new on WhatsApp. I checked my Snapchat and opened a few Snaps from my friends at work. I took a selfie of myself in my apartment not working. I sent it off and was happy that I don't work on

I’ll fill a tray for Mr. Thornton,” she offered, eager for any excuse to check up on the man and judge the severity of his injuries for herself, “and take it to the workshop.” “That won’t be necessary, Miss Greyson, but thank you.” Nicole spun toward the doorway. “Dar—Mr. Thornton!” She raked her gaze over his tall form. He moved a bit gingerly as he entered the kitchen, but that was to be expected after the abuse his body had taken that afternoon. No bandages in evidence, at least none that she could see. She supposed it was possible he had a wound concealed beneath his dark trousers, but she gauged his movements as he ambled to the table and didn’t detect a limp or any hitch in his stride. “Do I pass inspection?” The amusement in his voice brought a rush of heat to her cheeks. “That depends,” she brazened, lifting her chin. “Are there any hidden injuries I should be concerned about?” He made his way around the table, running his fingers along the back of each chair. “Such a personal question, Miss Greyson.” A teasing gleam lit his eyes as he steadily approached. Nicole dropped the bread knife and turned to face him fully, reaching behind herself to grip the cabinet top for support. “But you can put your mind at ease.” He didn’t stop when he rounded the table. He kept coming. Nicole’s pulse fluttered, and her grip on the cabinet doubled. “Except for a pile of bruises and some overheated skin, I’m fine.” He ceased his advance. Finally. She had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze, though, so close had he come. “I’m glad to hear it. Sir.” She added the last to try to force some distance between them. With him standing so close, all she could think about was that unexpected kiss they’d shared. Not the healthiest train of thought for a young woman who planned to leave as soon as monetarily possible. He was her employer. That was all.

For most people moving is a tiring experience. When on the verge of moving out to a new home or into a new office, it's only natural to focus on your new place and forget about the one you’re leaving. Actually, the last thing you would even think about is embarking on a heavy duty move out clean. However, you can be certain that agents, landlords and all the potential renters or buyers of your old home will most definitely notice if it's being cleaned, therefore getting the place cleaned up is something that you need to consider. The process of cleaning will basically depend to things; how dirty your property and the size of the home. If you leave the property in good condition, you'll have a higher the chance of getting back your bond deposit or if you're selling, attracting a potential buyer. Below are the steps you need to consider before moving out. You should start with cleaning. Remove all screws and nails from the walls and the ceilings, fill up all holes and dust all ledges. Large holes should be patched and the entire wall checked the major marks. Remove all the cobwebs from the walls and ceilings, taking care to wash or vacuum the vents. They can get quite dusty. Clean all doors and door knobs, wipe down all the switches, electrical outlets, vacuum/wipe down the drapes, clean the blinds and remove all the light covers from light fixtures and clean them thoroughly as they may contain dead insects. Also, replace all the burnt out light bulbs and empty all cupboards when you clean them. Clean all windows, window sills and tracks. Vacuum all carpets or get them professionally cleaned which quite often is stipulated in the rental agreement. After you've finished the general cleaning, you can now embark on the more specific areas. When cleaning the bathroom, wash off the soap scum and remove mould (if any) from the bathroom tiles. This can be done by pre-spraying the tile grout with bleach and letting it sit for at least half an hour. Clean all the inside drawers and vanity units thoroughly. Clean the toilet/sink, vanity unit and replace anything that you've damaged. Wash all shower curtains and shower doors plus all other enclosures. Polish the mirrors and make sure the exhaust fan is free of dust. You can generally vacuum these quite easily. Finally, clean the bathroom floors by vacuuming and mopping. In the kitchen, clean all the cabinets and liners and wash the cupboards inside out. Clean the counter-tops and shine the facet and sink. If the fridge is staying give it a good clean. You can do this by removing all shelves and wash them individually. Thoroughly degrease the oven inside and out. It's best to use and oven cleaner from your supermarket, just take care to use gloves and a mask as they can be quite toxic. Clean the kitchen floor well by giving it a good vacuum and mop . Sometimes the kitchen floor may need to be degreased. Dust the bedrooms and living room, vacuum throughout then mop. If you have a garage give it a good sweep. Also cut the grass, pull out all weeds and remove all items that may be lying or hanging around. Remember to put your garbage bins out for collection even if collection is a week away as in our experience the bins will be full to the brim from all the rubbish during the moving process. If this all looks too hard then you can always hire a bond cleaner to tackle the job for you or if you're on a tight budget you can download an end of lease cleaning checklist or have one sent to you from your local agent. Just make sure you give yourself at least a day or to take on the job. Its best not to rush through the job, just make sure everything is cleaned thoroughly, so it passes the inspection in order for you to get your bond back in full.

office into a sauna. She dropped her purse and keys on the credenza right inside the door and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. The electricity had already gone out. The only light in the house came from the glowing embers of scrub oak and mesquite logs in the fireplace. She held her hands out to warm them, and the rest of the rush from the drive down the slick, winding roads bottomed out, leaving her tired and sleepy. She rubbed her eyes and vowed she would not cry. Didn’t Grand remember that the day she came home from the gallery showings was special? Sage had never cut down a Christmas tree all by herself. She and Grand always went out into the canyon and hauled a nice big cedar back to the house the day after the showing. Then they carried boxes of ornaments and lights from the bunkhouse and decorated the tree, popped the tops on a couple of beers, and sat in the rocking chairs and watched the lights flicker on and off. She went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, but it was pitch-black inside. She fumbled around and there wasn’t even a beer in there. She finally located a gallon jar of milk and carried it to the cabinet, poured a glass full, and downed it without coming up for air. It took some fancy maneuvering to get the jar back inside the refrigerator, but she managed and flipped the light switch as she was leaving. “Dammit! Bloody dammit!” she said a second time using the British accent from the man who’d paid top dollar for one of her paintings. One good thing about the blizzard was if that crazy cowboy who thought he was buying the Rockin’ C could see this weather, he’d change his mind in a hurry. As soon as she and Grand got done talking, she’d personally send him an email telling him that the deal had fallen through. But he’d have to wait until they got electricity back to even get that much. Sage had lived in the house all of her twenty-six years and

It occurred to her that she had never thanked Arin for bringing her piano here. She found him in the library and meant to say what she had come to say, yet when she saw him studying a map near the fire, lit by an upward shower of sparks as one log fell on another, she remembered her promise precisely because of how she longed to forget it. She blurted something that had nothing to do with anything. “Do you know how to make honeyed half-moons?” “Do I…?” He lowered the map. “Kestrel, I hate to disappoint you, but I was never a cook.” “You know how to make tea.” He laughed. “You do realize that boiling water is within the capabilities of anybody?” “Oh.” Kestrel moved to leave, feeling foolish. What had possessed her to ask such a ridiculous question anyway? “I mean, yes,” Arin said. “Yes, I know how to make half-moons.” “Really?” “Ah…no. But we can try.” They went into the kitchens. A glance from Arin cleared the room, and then it was only the two of them, dumping flour onto the wooden worktable, Arin palming a jar of honey out of a cabinet. Kestrel cracked an egg into a bowl and knew why she had asked for this. So that she could pretend that there had been no war, there were no sides, and that this was her life. The half-moons came out as hard as rocks. “Hmm.” Arin inspected one. “I could use these as weapons.” She laughed before she could tell herself it wasn’t funny. “Actually, they’re about the size of your weapon of choice,” he said. “Which reminds me that you’ve never said how you dueled at Needles against the city’s finest fighter and won.” It would be a mistake to tell him. It would defy the simplest rule of warfare: to hide one’s strengths and weaknesses for as long as possible. Yet Kestrel told Arin the story of how she had beaten Irex. Arin covered his face with one floured hand and peeked at her between his fingers. “You are terrifying. Gods help me if I cross you, Kestrel.” “You already have,” she pointed out. “But am I your enemy?” Arin crossed the space between them. Softly, he repeated, “Am I?

What if she had already done it to herself? What if she had shaved away from the surface of her brain whatever synaptic interlacings had formed her gift? She remembered reading somewhere that some pop artist once bought an original drawing by Michelangelo—and had taken a piece of art gum and erased it, leaving blank paper. The waste had shocked her. Now she felt a similar shock as she imagined the surface of her own brain with the talent for chess wiped away. At home she tried a Russian game book, but she couldn’t concentrate. She started going through her game with Foster, setting the board up in the kitchen, but the moves of it were too painful. That damned Stonewall, and the hastily pushed pawn. A patzer’s move. Bad chess. Hungover chess. The telephone rang, but she didn’t answer. She sat at the board and wished for a moment, painfully, that she had someone to call. Harry Beltik would be back in Louisville. And she didn’t want to tell him about the game with Foster. He would find out soon enough. She could call Benny. But Benny had been icy after Paris, and she did not want to talk to him. There was no one else. She got up wearily and opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator, took down a bottle of white wine and poured herself a glassful. A voice inside her cried out at the outrage, but she ignored it. She drank half of it in one long swallow and stood waiting until she could feel it. Then she finished the glass and poured another. A person could live without chess. Most people did. When she awoke on the sofa the next morning, still wearing the Paris clothes she had worn when losing the game to Foster, she was frightened in a new way. She could sense her brain being physically blurred by alcohol, its positional grasp gone clumsy, its penetration clouded. But after breakfast she showered and changed and then poured herself a glass of wine. It was almost mechanical; she had learned to cut off thought as she did it. The main thing was to eat some toast first, so the wine wouldn’t burn her stomach. She kept drinking for days, but the memory of the game she had lost and the fear of what she was doing to the sharp edge of her gift would not go away, except when she was so drunk that she could not even think. There was a piece in the Sunday paper about her, with one of the pictures taken that morning at the high school, and a headline reading CHESS CHAMP DROPS FROM TOURNEY. She threw the paper away without reading the article. Then one morning after a night of dark and confusing dreams she awoke with an unaccustomed clarity: if she did not stop drinking immediately she would ruin what she had. She had allowed herself to sink into this frightening murk. She had to find a foothold somewhere to push herself free of it. She would have to get help.

I leave him there and head for the kitchen, sighing when I see a chair shoved over to the counter, Maddie standing on it, digging through the cabinets. “What do you think you’re doing, little girl?” “Looking for the Lucky Charms,” she says as I pull her down and set her on her feet. “I’m afraid we’re all out.” I grab a box of Cheerios. “How about these?” She makes a face of disgust. “Raisin Bran?” Another face. “How about some cottage cheese?” She pretends to gag. “Uh, well, how about—?” “How about I take you out for breakfast?” Jonathan suggests, stepping into the kitchen. “Pancakes, sausage, eggs…” “Bacon!” Maddie declares. “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, you know, with the whole you being you thing.” “Me being me,” he says. “Yeah, chances are you’ll get recognized and then have to explain this whole thing and well, you know, I’m not sure it’s worth it for some breakfast.” “But it might be bacon,” Maddie whines. Jonathan hesitates, thinking it over, glancing between us before he says, “I know somewhere we can go.” Mrs. McKleski’s place. Landing Inn. That’s where he takes us. Maddie and I stand in the woman’s foyer in our pajamas, while Jonathan wears just the leather pants from the Knightmare costume. Mrs. McKleski looks at us like we’ve gone crazy, and I instantly want to be anywhere else in the world, but it’s too late, because Maddie’s been promised some bacon. “You want breakfast,” Mrs. McKleski says. “That’s what you’re telling me?” He nods. “Yes, ma'am.” She stares at him. Hard. I expect a denial, because this whole idea is absurd, but after a moment, she lets out a resigned sigh. “Fine, but go put on some clothes,” she says. “This is an inn, Mr. Cunningham, not Chippendales. I won’t have you at my breakfast table looking like a gigolo.” He cocks an eyebrow at the woman. “Wasn’t aware you knew what a gigolo was.” “Go,” she says pointedly, “before I change my mind.” “Yes, ma’am,” he says, flashing her a smile before turning to me and nodding toward the stairs. “Join me?” I stare at him, not moving. He steps closer. “Please?” “Fine,” I mumble, glancing at Maddie, not wanting to cause a scene. “Hey, sweetheart, why don’t you have a seat in the living room?” “Nonsense,” Mrs. McKleski says. “She can come help me cook. Teach her some responsibility. Not sure her father ever learned any.” Jonathan scowls before again motioning for me to follow him. “And no hanky-panky,” Mrs. McKleski calls to us as we start upstairs. “What’s the hanky-panky?” Maddie asks, following the woman to the kitchen. “She means the hokey-pokey,” I yell down before Mrs. McKleski can answer, because there’s no telling how that woman would explain it. “Oh, I like the hokey-pokey!” Maddie looks at the woman with confusion. “Why don’t you wanna play it?” “Too messy,” Mrs. McKleski grumbles. “All that turning yourself around.” Shaking my head, I go upstairs, stalling right inside the room as Jonathan sorts through his belongings to find some clothes.

I have a quick remedy for the lack of contentment. Clean your house. Clean every room. Start with your child’s bedroom and then move to the playroom, family room, or wherever you store their playthings. Dump out the toy bins and boxes. Pull out all the books, every toy, game, electronic game system (or systems), and the software and accessories. Next, go to your own room. Clean your bedroom closet. Then go down the hall and clean out the closet you use in the spare bedroom. Go through the cabinets and drawers in your kitchen. Clean the basement. Clean the garage, if you have one. Go visit the storage space you’re renting. Just open the door and look at all the stuff you’ve accumulated over the years. I dare you.

So that drawing." Ian extended and arm to full length and pulled down three ceramic bowls from the top shelf of our kitchen cabinet. "Is that all imaginative sketching, or did you have something real to go off of. Because if you did... if you actually saw that in real life, well, I'm not sure how you're alive and sitting here right now. Because that is the definition of drop dead gorgeous.

There's this sailor with a pet parrot. But the parrot swears like an old sea captain. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself! Trouble is, the sailor who owns him is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy. One day, it gets to be too much, so the sailor grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the sailor locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches everything inside. Finally the sailor lets the bird out. The bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran seaman blush. The sailor is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible racket from inside. Then it suddenly gets very quiet. At first the sailor just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. He's opens up the freezer door. The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on." The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot. The parrot speaks again, "By the way, what did the chicken do?

What’s wrong with you?” John asks suspiciously. I give him a ‘what chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?’ look and he explains. “You just woke up.” I nod. “Walked into the kitchen.” Once again I nod, not seeing what the big deal is. “And didn’t rip apart the cabinets like a rabid squirrel looking like coffee.” I shrug at that, I didn’t even remember it. “What the fuck have you done with my best friend?

What’s wrong with you?” John asks suspiciously. I give him a ‘what chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?’ look and he explains. “You just woke up.” I nod. “Walked into the kitchen.” Once again I nod, not seeing what the big deal is. “And didn’t rip apart the cabinets like a rabid squirrel looking for coffee.” I shrug at that, I didn’t even remember it. “What the fuck have you done with my best friend?

Grateful she had locked it, she crept to the door and peered out the peephole, then smiled as she unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. “Kyle. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.” “I couldn’t leave you all by yourself. And I’ll bet you haven’t had dinner. Am I right?” “Yes, but only because I fell asleep.” “My point exactly. You need someone to take care of you.” Jessica laughed and allowed him to enter. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” “I know you are. But I think you deserve a little pampering, don’t you?” “I won’t argue with that.” Though she knew having him here would just make it harder to say good-bye later, she was willing to put it off for a little while longer. “What did you have in mind?” He held up a bag. “I brought Chinese.” He winked at her. “Your favorite.” Surprised by his apparent need to take care of her, if she didn’t know he was engaged to Melanie she’d think he was flirting with her. But he was engaged to Melanie, so she could only take his actions to mean that he was taking care of an old friend. He walked into the kitchen and set the bag on the table. “Where are the plates?” When she started walking toward the cabinets, he gently held on to her arms and steered her toward the table. “I can find them myself. You need to sit.” She smiled, loving the attention and soaking it up while it lasted. He found the plates as well as utensils and glasses, and set the table before sitting across from her. “I know you like the orange chicken and the fried rice, so I got plenty of both.” He scooped out a generous helping onto her plate, then filled his own. Jessica dug in, surprised by how hungry she was. “This is delicious. Thanks for bringing it over.” “My pleasure,” he said, grinning. He took a few more bites, then set his fork down. “I have to admit, it bothers me that your fiancé didn’t make the effort to be here with you after all you’ve been through.” Jessica froze, her fork midway to her mouth. She set it down and straightened the napkin in her lap before meeting Kyle’s eyes. “The truth is, I didn’t

You would sail the kitchen cabinet into the night and anchor the wood to the seafloor. You would drown with the diamond, not float with the ring.

Having worked in the cabinet hardware industry for many years, the Schaubs saw a need for a different kind of company, one focused on service, availability, quality, and unique designs.Click here to view:

Keep technology in its place. There are some things that computers and other high-tech devices handle remarkably well. And there are some things that still go more smoothly with paper and pencil or similarly low-tech implements. Until voice recognition technology is part of all computers and until powerful computers are so tiny they can be built into the handle of your kitchen cabinet, it makes sense to keep your file of recipes right where they are in your card file box, not on a computer disk. Someday, home computers may be slick enough to produce recipes as quickly as you can say "chicken curry with noodles." For now, entering recipes into your computer and retrieving them each time you want to use them is definitely more bother than it's worth. Chances are, you won't use them.

Kirkpatrick’s appointment was said to be unpopular with some Reagan insiders such as the Kitchen Cabinet, who held against her that she was a Democrat and therefore not a Reagan loyalist.

That term of endearment brought back old, old memories. Robin’s mind flickered with images of herself as a tiny child, sitting in the Lazenbury’s kitchen, eating Chips Ahoy cookies and drinking apple juice, reading the comics out of the Sunday paper or watching ReBoot, Pirates of Dark Water, or Darkwing Duck on the wood-cabinet Magnavox.

While we were in Honiara that January, I got pregnant and I was sick as I never knew it was possible to be sick.  The smell of powdered milk made me throw up.  The smell of bread made me throw up.  The smell of the inside of the kitchen cabinets made me throw up.  For the next four months, I threw up.  Throwing up was my life.  We did not go back to the village as planned, because I was throwing up, though even ships could hardly have made me throw up more.

Introduction For many folks, the kitchen is the catchall room for every item that enters the house. Mail and keys wind up on the counters, school books are scattered on the kitchen table, coats and sweaters are slung on the backs of chairs and the bowl of pet food always gets kicked over as you’re rushing around preparing a meal. In many ways, the kitchen is more like the family room than any other room in the house. Wouldn’t it feel amazing to have not only a sparkling-clean kitchen, but also one that’s streamlined, tidy and organized? We feel that the kitchen is the best place to begin a decluttering project because it sets the stage for how you want the rest of your house to appear. Now, some organizing experts will suggest you begin by clearing your counters first, which works well if you plan to tackle your kitchen in one decluttering event. But for this project, when you’re working in 10-minute increments, you’ll need to create space in cabinets, closets or drawers for those items you no longer want on the counter. For instance, Barrie has found beginning with the lower cabinets often frees up space for some of those countertop appliances. Here’s a suggested plan for tackling your kitchen: • Begin with the lower cabinets, moving left to right around the room. • Move to the upper cabinets, following the same pattern. • Move to the kitchen drawers, starting with the drawers used most often. • Now with more space above and below, clear the countertops. • Clean out and organize the refrigerator.

He had been working on damage control ever since Twelve had limped out of the church hall and called for emergency pickup. He had taken the response team himself to ensure that there was no trace of Twelve ever having been there. The blood from his leg had been scrubbed away and footage from local CCTV cameras had been deleted. The dead man—Rutherford—was left where he was. Twelve had explained what had happened. The surprise of Rutherford’s appearance had saved Milton’s life, so now, in death, he would have to pay back the damage that he had caused. His body would prove to be useful. It was easy to fabricate the story. CCTV footage placed Milton at the scene and showed Rutherford arriving moments before he was shot. A camera at the entrance to the park had footage of Milton heading north. He was wounded, too, a bullet to the shoulder. They had immediately checked local hospitals for admissions, but it was perfunctory; Milton was much too savvy to do something as foolish as that. An hour later they had intercepted a call to local police of a break-in. A couple had returned to their house on the edge of the nearby park to find that someone had forced the door to the garden. Their car and a few clothes had been stolen. That, in itself, would have been enough for Control to have investigated, but they had also reported that their first aid cabinet had been ransacked, that a lamp had been moved onto the kitchen table, and that kitchen utensils had been found covered in blood.

kitchen cabinet is made up of people of different skills and professional backgrounds who will push you in different directions and into different arenas—and, ideally, become true friends. Diversity is key: no pale, male, and stale groupthink here!

Aberto: Use this spell to open your kitchen cabinets instead of bending down and smacking your head on the counter.

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Sharing experiences in designing beautiful kitchen cabinets Moc Kien Xinh Gia Lai

It’s pretty amazing to be around the kind of person who envisions a thing they want, and then goes to Menards and figures out how to make it real. I’m the type of person who thinks, “Wow, that table would be gorgeous in a deep teal,” and then walks past it every single day for the rest of my life without once considering going to the hardware store and getting sandpaper and a drop cloth. I would love to replace my kitchen cabinets, but how am I supposed to get the old ones down? And, even if I developed some herculean old-man strength and ripped them clean off the wall, what am I supposed to do with them? How do you throw cabinets away? Who do you get to put up the new ones?!

In the last 15 years, German cities including Freiburg, Tübingen, Hamburg, and Berlin have developed cooperative building programs called “Baugemeinschaft” or “Baugruppen.” This is a development model that allows the future owners to become the developers. By developing buildings individually, plot by plot, a diverse, high-quality, and more affordable building stock is possible. The Baugemeinschaft approach bridges the individual and private needs of residents and their common and social needs. Seldom do urban dwellings respond to the needs of an active and growing family. Often, the only way to have a home designed to your own specification, is to find a site outside of the city and build a detached house. Designing your own home in an urban setting is often only an option for the wealthy. New apartments offer some choices, but they are limited to things such as bathroom tiles and kitchen cabinets. The idea of being able to influence the design of your own urban home, including the dimensions, layout, heating system, and insulation is extremely interesting.

No matter what anyone in North Star thought of my mom, everyone agreed on one thing: she was the best cook in the Texas Hill Country. She was known for her barbecue and fried pies. But she was most famous for one particular dish. The dish people people would drive hundreds of miles for was simply called the Number One. I imagine Momma was going to make a list of specials. The trouble was, she never got past the Number One. So there it sat at the top of the menu, alone, all by itself. The Number One: Chicken fried steak with cream gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans cooked in bacon fat, one buttermilk biscuit, and a slice of pecan pie With Brad's words ringing in my head about my vague culinary vision, I decide to make the Number One for tonight's supper. After leaving the salon, I drive to various farm stands, grocery stores, and butchers. I handpick the top-round steak with care, choose fresh eggs one by one, and feel an immense sense of home as I pull Mom's cast-iron skillet from the depths of Merry Carole's cabinets. My happiest memories involve me walking into whatever house we were staying in at the time to the sounds and smells of chicken fried steak sizzling away in that skillet. This dish is at the very epicenter of who I am. If my culinary roots start anywhere, it's with the Number One. As I tenderize the beef, my mind is clear and I'm happy. I haven't cooked like this- my recipes for me and the people I love- in far too long. If ever. Time flies as I roll out the crust for the pecan pie. I'm happy and contented as I cut out the biscuit rounds one by one. I haven't a care in the world. Being in Merry Carole's kitchen has washed away everything I left in the whirlwind of being back in North Star.

I never drink on duty," she said coldly. "Besides somebody might smell my breath." "You're working for me now. All my employees are required to get liquored up from time to time. Besides, if you had a good dinner and were to eat a couple of the Chasers in the kitchen cabinet, nobody would smell your breath.

1930s Functionalism/Modernism Exterior •Facade: Cube shapes and light-color plaster facades, or thin, standing wood panels. •Roof: Flat roof, sometimes clad in copper or sheet metal. •Windows: Long horizontal window bands often with narrow—or no—architraves; large panes of glass without mullions or transoms. Emphasis on the horizontal rather than on the vertical. Windows run around corners to allow more light and to demonstrate the new possibilities of construction and materials. •Outside door: Wooden door with circular glass window. •Typical period details: Houses positioned on plots to allow maximum access to daylight. Curving balconies, often running around the corner; corrugated-iron balcony frontage. Balcony flooring and fixings left visible. The lines of the building are emphasized. Interior •Floors: Parquet flooring in various patterns, tongue-and-groove floorboards, or linoleum. •Interior doors: Sliding doors and flush doors of lamella construction (vaulted, with a crisscross pattern). Masonite had a breakthrough. •Door handles: Black Bakelite, wood, or chrome. •Fireplaces: Slightly curved, brick/stone built. Light-color cement. •Wallpaper/walls: Smooth internal walls and light wallpapers, or mural wallpaper that from a distance resembled a rough, plastered wall. Internal wall and woodwork were light in color but rarely completely white—often muted pastel shades. •Furniture: Functionalism, Bauhaus, and International style influences. Tubular metal furniture, linear forms. Bakelite, chrome, stainless steel, colored glass. •Bathroom: Bathrooms were simple and had most of today’s features. External pipework. Usually smooth white tiles on the walls or painted plywood. Black-and-white chessboard floor. Lavatories with low cisterns were introduced. •Kitchen: Flush cupboard doors with a slightly rounded profile. The doors were partial insets so that only about a third of the thickness was visible on the outside—this gave them a light look and feel. Metal-sprung door latches, simple knobs, metal cup handles on drawers. Wall cabinets went to ceiling height but had a bottom section with smaller or sliding doors. Storage racks with glass containers for dry goods such as salt and flour became popular. Air vents were provided to deal with cooking smells.

measuring tools into a tall cabinet at the back of the large, industrial kitchen. I returned for the six-quart mixer, hoisting it in my arms and stumbling under its weight. The click of her heels grew closer and I knew I didn’t have time to hide the machine like I wanted, so I lowered it to the ground and covered it with my apron, spinning around just as my momma appeared in the doorway. “Thank goodness.” Her hands were

In the third cabinet under the counter, she hit the good stuff. “Oh! You have a KitchenAid.” “If you’re planning on caressing my mixer, you should know that might make my testicles explode,” he said from behind her. Her cheeks went hot enough to glow. “That would be awkward.

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Why are you single? There isn't exactly a surplus of eligible men in town. The single women must be throwing themselves at you." I realized that comment was a mistake pretty much the second after it was out of my mouth. Because his smile went wicked; his eyes danced. I knew exactly what was going to follow. "Think I'm hot shit, huh?" he asked, leaning back in his chair, looking way too self-satisfied. "I mean... by small town standards," I shrugged, hoping I was coming off as casual and collected plates to bring to the kitchen. I had scraped the plate and was standing at the sink running water over it when I suddenly felt his entire body press up behind mine, making my hips push against the cabinet as my breath whooshed out of me. I hadn't even heard him follow me in. But there he was, touching me from feet to shoulder. One of his hands moved out and settled on my hip, fingers pressing into the hipbone hollow as his other hand slid gently up my arm and brushed my hair from one side of my neck to the other. Before I could guess his intention, I felt his lips press in to the column of my neck, making my entire body do a shiver at the unexpected contact that shot from the touch to directly between my legs. My head tipped to the side, giving him more access as his mouth moved slowly upward, the hint of his tongue tracing over the skin he kissed as I shamelessly leaned back into him. His arm on my hip slid across my lower belly, anchoring me to him as his lips went around my earlobe, his tongue tracing the outer edge and ripping an almost pained moan from between my lips. My skin felt electric, buzzy, humming, begging for more of the sensation. But he wasn't in the mind to give it to me. Instead, his lips left my skin entirely and I felt the side of his face press into my hair. When he spoke, his voice low and rumbling, causing another rush of desire so strong it was borderline painful; his breath was warm on my ear. "By small town standards, how wet are your panties right now?

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Where could she find some? She didn’t feel like going out. She really hadn’t wanted to leave the house at all. Purely a psychological reaction to having her life taken out of her hands, she knew that. She puttered around in the kitchen, opening cabinets, until Baldwin’s voice made her jump. “Look in the freezer.” She turned and saw him smiling at her. It wasn’t a happy, good-to-see-you smile, it was more of a grim reminder of what they’d both been through over the past couple of days. She

Landon reappeared, wearing a shirt, and pointed to the trash bag. “All done with that? I’m taking them to the garage.” Colby did a quick scan of the kitchen. “Yeah, looks like we got it all.” “Cool.” He knotted the top together then lifted the bag. Glass bottles rattled inside. “This shit stinks. Our friends are pigs.” Matt pretended to clear his throat. “Says the beer pong champ.” He lifted his hands, his face masked in innocence. “Didn’t say a thing.” “Ha-ha, okay, okay. Yeah, so maybe I contributed.” Landon shouldered the weighted bag. “A lot. But I also kicked your ass.” “We,” I chimed in. “Considering how drunk you were, we should probably respect the solid seventy/thirty split of the win.” Landon opened the garage door and paused. “Hold that thought.” “Uh-oh, you got him all fired up now.” Matt laughed and plopped down on the couch in the now clean living room. “You got anything for a headache?” Colby nodded, reached into the kitchen cabinet where he stored the ibuprofen, then tossed him the bottle. The garage door reopened and Landon stepped through already talking. “Okay, so if I’m not mistaken, you’re saying you did seventy percent of the winning?” “Seems about right.” I grinned, just to egg him on. “What I’m thinking is we should just call it fifty/fifty because my drunkenness just took my superior beer pong skills down to average-guy range.” “Oh? So that’s what we want to call it? Hmm…Okay, if this helps keep your ego nice and inflated, I guess I can get on board with that.” “Hey now…” He forced back a smile. “Kidding. We all know I suck at beer pong. If it hadn’t been for my champion of a partner and Matt’s extreme inebriation, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. It was a team effort and we…how did you say it? Mopped the floors with the blood of our enemies?” “Damn girl, you’re feisty. This isn’t no red wedding. I just said we kicked some ass.” “Oh, you didn’t say something like that? Wow, now I see how the inflated ego comes about. That kind of win just really goes straight to the head. I’m like crazy with power.” “I’d say.” He laughed. “And remind me to never play against you.