Kitchen Rules Quotes

I went to the kitchen, found a glass in a cupboard and filled it with tap water. As a rule I never drank the stuff. Fish have sex in water… think about that…

Rule number one: never assume your mate spends all her time in the kitchen.

The first time I was ever called ugly, I was thirteen. It was a rich friend of my brother Carlton's over to shoot guns in the field. 'Why you crying, girl?' Constantine asked me in the kitchen. I told her what the boy had called me, tears streaming down my face. 'Well? Is you?' I blinked, paused my crying. 'Is I what?' 'Now you look a here, Egenia'-because constantien was the only one who'd occasionally follow Mama's rule. 'Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?' 'I don't know. I don't think so,' I sobbed. Constantine sat down next to me, at the kitchen table. I heard the cracking of her swollen joints. She pressed her thumb hard in the palm of my hand, somthing we both knew meant Listen. Listen to me. 'Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision.' Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. 'You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?' She kept her thumb pressed hard in my hand. I nodded that I understood. I was just smart enough to realize she meant white people. And even though I still felt miserable, and knew that I was, most likely, ugly, it was the first time she ever talked to me like I was something besides my mother's white child. All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.

When I’m a Duchess,” she said to herself (not in a very hopeful tone though), “I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does very well without. Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,” she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, “and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew that; then they wouldn’t be so stingy about it, you know—

Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, “Where’s Susie?” They were silent. Samuel looked at Lindsey. “Buckley,” my father called from the adjoining room, “come play Monopoly with me.” My brother had never been invited to play Monopoly. Everyone said he was too young, but this was the magic of Christmas. He rushed into the family room, and my father picked him up and sat him on his lap. “See this shoe?” my father said. Buckley nodded his head. “I want you to listen to everything I say about it, okay?” “Susie?” my brother asked, somehow connecting the two. “Yes, I’m going to tell you where Susie is.” I began to cry up in heaven. What else was there for me to do? “This shoe was the piece Susie played Monopoly with,” he said. “I play with the car or sometimes the wheelbarrow. Lindsey plays with the iron, and when you mother plays, she likes the cannon.” “Is that a dog?” “Yes, that’s a Scottie.” “Mine!” “Okay,” my father said. He was patient. He had found a way to explain it. He held his son in his lap, and as he spoke, he felt Buckley’s small body on his knee-the very human, very warm, very alive weight of it. It comforted him. “The Scottie will be your piece from now on. Which piece is Susie’s again?” “The shoe?” Buckley asked. “Right, and I’m the car, your sister’s the iron, and your mother is the cannon.” My brother concentrated very hard. “Now let’s put all the pieces on the board, okay? You go ahead and do it for me.” Buckley grabbed a fist of pieces and then another, until all the pieces lay between the Chance and Community Chest cards. “Let’s say the other pieces are our friends?” “Like Nate?” “Right, we’ll make your friend Nate the hat. And the board is the world. Now if I were to tell you that when I rolled the dice, one of the pieces would be taken away, what would that mean?” “They can’t play anymore?” “Right.” “Why?” Buckley asked. He looked up at my father; my father flinched. “Why?” my brother asked again. My father did not want to say “because life is unfair” or “because that’s how it is”. He wanted something neat, something that could explain death to a four-year-old He placed his hand on the small of Buckley’s back. “Susie is dead,” he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game. “Do you know what that means?” Buckley reached over with his hand and covered the shoe. He looked up to see if his answer was right. My father nodded. "You won’t see Susie anymore, honey. None of us will.” My father cried. Buckley looked up into the eyes of our father and did not really understand. Buckley kept the shoe on his dresser, until one day it wasn't there anymore and no amount of looking for it could turn up.

Doesn’t Judd have a rule about you wearing lingerie in the kitchen?

-You've got a . . . Lot of books, he said at last. -it's a sickness. -Are you . . . Seeing anyone for it? -I'm afraid it's untreatable. -is this the . . . Dewey decimal system? -No. But it's based on similar principles. Those are the British novelists. The French are in the kitchen. Homer, Virgil, and the other epics are by the tub. -I take it the . . . Transcendental its do better in the sunlight. -Exactly. -Do they need much water? -Not as much as you think. But lots of pruning. He pointed the volume toward a pile of books under my bed. -And the . . . Mushrooms? -The Russians. -Ah. -Who's winning? -Not me.

Footsteps approach the kitchen. Garrett wanders in, wiping sweat off his brow. When he notices Sabrina, he brightens. “Oh good. You’re here. Hold on—gotta grab something.” She turns to me as if to say, Is he talking to me? He’s already gone, though, his footsteps thumping up the stairs. At the table, Hannah runs a hand through her hair and gives me a pleading look. “Just remember he’s your best friend, okay?” That doesn’t sound ominous. When Garrett returns, he’s holding a notepad and a ballpoint pen, which he sets on the table as he sits across from Sabrina. “Tuck,” he says. “Sit. This is important.” I’m so baffled right now. Hannah’s resigned expression doesn’t help in lessening the confusion. Once I’m seated next to Sabrina, Garrett flips open the notepad, all business. “Okay. So let’s go over the names.” Sabrina raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug, because I legitimately don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. “I’ve put together a solid list. I really think you’re going to like these.” But when he glances down at the page, his face falls. “Ah crap. We can’t use any of the boy names.” “Wait.” Sabrina holds up a hand, her brow furrowed. “You’re picking names for our baby?” He nods, busy flipping the page. My baby mama gapes at me. I shrug again. “Just out of curiosity, what were the boy names?” Grace hedges, clearly fighting a smile. He cheers up again. “Well, the top contender was Garrett.” I snicker loud enough to rattle Sabrina’s water glass. “Uh-huh,” I say, playing along. “And what was the runner-up?” “Graham.” Hannah sighs. “But it’s okay. I have some kickass girl names too.” He taps his pen on the pad, meets our eyes, and utters two syllables. “Gigi.” My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? I’m not naming my daughter Gigi.” Sabrina is mystified. “Why Gigi?” she asks slowly. Hannah sighs again. The name suddenly clicks in my head. Oh for fuck’s sake. “G.G.,” I mutter to Sabrina. “As in Garrett Graham.” She’s silent for a beat. Then she bursts out laughing, triggering giggles from Grace and eventually Hannah, who keeps shaking her head at her boyfriend. “What?” Garrett says defensively. “The godfather should have a say in the name. It’s in the rule book.” “What rule book?” Hannah bursts out. “You make up the rules as you go along!” “So?

She had been Zoya’s teacher, feared and beloved, powerful beyond measure. “I watched her throw herself from a mountaintop. She sacrificed herself to stop you. Was that her martyrdom?” The Darkling said nothing. Zoya couldn’t stop herself. “Grigori was eaten by a bear. Elizaveta was drawn and quartered. Still, they returned. There are stories whispered in the Elbjen mountains of the Dark Mother. She crowds in when the nights grow long. She steals the heat from kitchen fires.” “Liar.” “Maybe. We all have stories to tell.

I'm after a woman who likes sex but doesn't put the lust part above the intelligence part. She could have a hundred partners for all I care, just as long as they've been vetted for psychopathic tendencies. I have four rules. Number one: don't invite a person into your body if you wouldn't invite her into your kitchen. Number two: the act needs to take place in a clean environment. Number three: precautions need to be taken to protect from disease and pregnancy. And Number four: don't ration the passion, i.e. put you best fuck forward.

As an art form, cooktalk is, like haiku or kabuki, defined by established rules, with a rigid, traditional framework in which one may operate.

Anyone who’d stop feeling up or finger banging a woman in favour of taking a fucking phone call is an inconsiderate asshole you shouldn’t be opening your legs for.” “I’m seeing that now.” “I’m serious, Lydia.” I studied the tabletop, needing a moment to pull myself together. “How long have we known each other? What, half an hour, an hour?” “Ah.” Turning in his seat, he checked out an old wooden clock on the kitchen wall. “Yeah. about that.” “Are you aware that most people wait a little longer before discussing the rules of etiquette in regards to finger banging? Who they should and shouldn’t open their legs for? Things like that.” “That so?” “It is.” “Well, fuck.” He sat back, outright grinning at me.

I asked Bill what career path he thought I should take, and he replied, “Live the artist’s life.” For years I pondered over his advice. What did it mean to “live the artist’s life?” I finally came to realize that there were no written codes, no hard and fast rules. You didn’t have to starve in a garret or drink yourself to death or cut off your ear. You didn’t even have to literally “make art” physically. The art was your life—your values, your outlook, your passions, your point of view. It was the things you cherished, whether they were people or places or ideas.

The no-booze rule is one of several shams perpetuated by certain religious groups, presumably to keep their flocks in line. After all, what’s a shepherd to do with drunk sheep? So take your medicine, but leave the booze on the shelf. We have a label to keep, and it’s not Jack Daniels. Don’t mourn for me. Just tell me what to do rather than teach me what to be. Slam another pill, pop that one last sedative…you’ll find me in the kitchen, washing my glass.

That when he had thus in prayer filled his mind with great sentiments of that infinite Being, he went to his work appointed in the kitchen (for he was cook to the society); there having first considered severally the things his office required, and when and how each thing was to be done, he spent all the intervals of his time, as well before as after his work, in prayer.

you’ve spent two years at the same school as Mina, hardly talking to her, never even realizing she is alive. Then she goes and does something crazy, against my wishes. She placed her own life in danger to save yours.” Her face became very still. “Now, because of those actions, our whole family has to live with the consequences. You now feel obligated to help her, like she did you. I get that, I really do. But what gives you the right to question our actions and lifestyle?” Silence filled the kitchen. Mina held her breath, afraid to move. Brody straightened in his seat and swallowed slowly. Sara brushed her hands over her forehead in defeat. “You’re enamored. That’s it. In another week or so, you will wake up, and this will all be a dream. You will forget that Mina ever even saved your life. She will go back to being my clumsy, forgotten, outcast teen daughter, and you will go back to ruling the school and dating the head cheerleader.

There is balance in taste, too, and an unbalanced taste can't captivate the eater. In order to create harmony, you have to think about balance, and to get balance in the kitchen you have to follow seemingly insignificant but crucial rules.

I wanted him for more than a few months. Somewhere between his penthouse in Seattle and the ranch in Colorado, between the private jets, the dressing rooms, and my mom’s kitchen, I’d fallen in love with him. No wonder I was willing to break all the rules.

Fortunately, I knew the cardinal rule of getting on with one’s fellow cooks. It applies in any kitchen and can be summed up in two short words: bust ass. Restaurant kitchens are the ultimate levelers. When you’re slammed and orders are starting to back up, you could care less about the color of the hands of the cook who is working next to you, as long as they are moving fast and effectively. Personal life, sexual preferences, accent, addictions, criminal record—none of them matter. Conversely, if he isn’t holding up his end, he could be your blood brother and you’d fire him in a second. That I had been chef at the “French White House” didn’t mean anything to these HoJo line chefs.

Demi-glace. There are a lot of ways to make demi-glace, but I recommend you simply take your already reduced meat stock, add some red wine, toss in some shallots and fresh thyme and a bay leaf and peppercorns, and slowly, slowly simmer it and reduce it again until it coats a spoon. Strain. Freeze this stuff in an ice-cube tray, pop out a cube or two as needed, and you are in business — you can rule the world. And remember, when making a sauce with demi-glace, don't forget to monter au beurre. Chervil,

That’s where perestroika really took place. 1960s dissident life is the kitchen life. Thanks, Khrushchev! He’s the one who led us out of the communal apartments; under his rule, we got our own private kitchens where we could criticize the government and, most importantly, not be afraid, because in the kitchen you were always among friends. It

a monstrous, despotic, iron-fisted Frenchman who ruled his kitchen like President for Life Idi Amin, it was Chef Bernard.

There wasn’t an official rule book that he knew of, but he was pretty sure a guy didn’t bend his best damn friend over the kitchen table.

I have only one rule in this kitchen. The cooks' energy gets passed into the dishes. Only food prepared with love will nurture.

On evenings when the orange moon was rising in the sky, and some woman was crying in their kitchen, Sally and Gillian would lock pinkies and vow never to be ruled by their passions.

Katherine was also, in many ways, a remarkable child. All children are: no two are sliced from the same clean cloth. It is simply that for some children, their remarkable attributes will take the form of being able to locate the nearest mud puddle without being directed toward it, even when there has been no rain for a month or more, or being able to scream in registers that cause the neighborhood bats to lose control of themselves and soar into kitchen windows. Katherine's remarkability took the form of a quiet self-assuredness, a conviction that as long as she followed the rules, she could find her way through any maze, pass cleanly through any storm.

A healthy attitude to eating I am concerned about the current victimisation of food. The apparent need to divide the contents of our plates into heroes and villains. The current villains are sugar and gluten, though it used to be fat, and before that it was salt (and before that it was carbs and . . . oh, I’ve lost track). It is worth remembering that today’s devil will probably be tomorrow’s angel and vice versa. We risk having the life sucked out of our eating by allowing ourselves to be shamed over our food choices. If this escalates, historians may look back on this generation as one in which society’s decision about what to eat was driven by guilt and shame rather than by good taste or pleasure. Well, not on my watch. Yes, I eat cake, and ice cream and meat. I eat biscuits and bread and drink alcohol too. What is more, I eat it all without a shred of guilt. And yet, I like to think my eating is mindful rather than mindless. I care deeply about where my food has come from, its long-term effect on me and the planet. That said, I eat what you might call ‘just enough’ rather than too much. My rule of thumb – just don’t eat too much of any one thing.

She kissed him and went back to her food prepping. 'Could kissing in the kitchen compromise food safety?' asked Carwen with a big grin. Carys grinned back: 'Nah, but maybe there should be a rule about kissing in the kitchen. I think it should be mandatory.

Your place is in the bedroom or the kitchen,” he lectured the girls. “All a woman is good for is to cook and be a whore in bed.” His daughters would fight to prove him wrong. His son apparently believed him. 12 As Brad entered his teenage years in the early 1960s, Sanford grew even prouder of his son.

I thought of the boys again. We were over at the twins’ house. Everyone was in the kitchen as Asher checked the enchiladas that Maria had left in the fridge for us. Asher and Isaac were picking on Ethan. Who came over to me, hugged me from behind, and rested his head on my shoulder. “Make them stop picking on me, Beautiful,” He begged pitifully. I reached behind me and ran my fingers through his hair. “Aw, you can dish it out but not take it?” I teased him. He growled in my ear before letting me go and smacking me on the butt, I turned and smacked his arm in return. Ethan backed off as he laughed. I flipped him off then turned back to the others, they had all gone still. “What?” I asked. Everyone unfroze and went back to the conversation. It wasn't until later when I realized that was the first time one of them had smacked my butt. I made a rule that night that if they smack mine, theirs’ becomes fair game. So far only the twins were willing to risk it.

I have four rules. Number one: don’t invite a person into your body if you wouldn’t invite her into your kitchen. Number two: the act needs to take place in a clean environment. Number three: precautions need to be taken to protect from disease and pregnancy. And Number four: don’t ration the passion, i.e. put your best fuck forward.

Many other raw food products--notably poultry from CAFOs--typically carry a much higher threat to human health in terms of pathogen load, and yet the government trusts us to render it safe in our own humble kitchens. But it's easy to see how impossibly strict milk rules might gratify industry lobbyists, by eliminating competition from family producers.

It is relatively easy for a person to lie. Saying “I love you” takes little or no effort. However, demonstrating love requires involvement, participation, and action. If your relationship doesn’t have any involvement, participation, and action, then you can assume it also has very little love. Conversely, if a partner shows his or her love in a variety of physical ways—asking if you want something from the kitchen, doing household chores without prodding, buying little gifts when they’re not expected, et cetera—then the words “I love you” become less important. They’re nice to hear, but they become the icing on the cake when a person’s love is demonstrated regularly. Stop and Consider: Does your partner demonstrate his or her love?

Just like you have taken control of your life you must now take control of your kitchen. It is YOUR kitchen after-all and in MY kitchen, I make the rules. There are no unhealthy ingredients allowed to be brought into my home. If my family and I do feel like we deserve to get some ice cream or enjoy a pizza, we get in the car and make a day of it. My house, just like my body, is my temple.

It was a childhood of mud, barking dogs, barbed wire, dilapidated farm buildings, squealing pigs with their flaking skin and squashed-in faces, and little human contact, beyond a mother who sat most of the day at the kitchen table wearing the slack, staring aspect of someone who had been lobotomized, and his father, who ruled their acres of pig shit and ruin with his angry laughter and his fists.

Ham was standing at the counter in the kitchen with his head turned, glowering at me. “New rule. You don’t do that shit when I’m in the house,” he growled and I blinked. “What shit?” “You use your toy to get off when I’m not fuckin’ here.” Oh my God. He heard me. How humiliating was this? “Ham--” “Heard the toy. Head you. Don’t do that again.” “I--” “Hear it again, make no mistake, babe, I’ll join you.

She moved to push past him. When he did not move, she stopped, unwilling to touch him. A pity. The memory of the warmth of her gloved hand on his cold cheek flashed. Apparently her behavior outside had been the product of surprise. And pleasure. He wondered what else he might do instinctively in response to pleasure. An image flashed- blond hair spread wide across dark, silken sheets, ice blue eyes alight with surprise as he gave prim, proper Penelope a glimpse of dark and heady pleasure. He'd nearly kissed her in the darkness. It had started out as a way to intimidate her, to begin the systematic compromising of quiet, unassuming, Penelope Marbury. But he did not deny that as they stood in his barren kitchen, he wondered what she would taste like. How her breath would sound fluttering across his skin. How she would feel against him. Around him.

An economically devastated Bengal became too weak to fight back the famine of 1769–70; it is estimated that 10 million, out of a population of 30 million, died. ‘In fact, British control of India started with a famine in Bengal in 1770 and ended in a famine – again in Bengal – in 1943. Working in the midst of the terrible 1877 famine that he estimated had cost another 10 million lives, Cornelius Walford calculated that in the 120 years of British rule there had been thirty-four famines in India, compared with only seventeen recorded famines in the entire previous two millennia,’ writes Robins. The Mughal response to famine had been good governance: embargo on food export, anti-speculation regulation, tax relief and free kitchens. If any merchant short-changed a peasant during a famine, the punishment was an equivalent weight in flesh from his body. That kept hoarding down.

He took the narrow stairs two at a time all the way to the first floor. He then went out through the kitchen, letting the screen door slam behind him. They could hear his boots clattering on the porch steps. The girls went to the window to watch him stride down Magnolia Street. “Headed for trouble,” April said cheerfully. “How do you know that?” Jet wondered. April grinned. There was definitely a family resemblance. “Because I’m headed for the very same place.

She looked to Pippa. "Have I made it difficult for you?" Pippa hedged. "Not at all. Castleton sent news to Father just last week that he was planning to court me in earnest, and it's not as though I'm the most ordinary of debutantes." It was an understatement. Pippa was something of a bluestocking, very focused on the sciences and fascinated by the insides of living things, from plants to people. She'd once stolen a goose from the kitchens and dissected it in her bedchamber.

I found him in the kitchen, at the table in the bay window, already eating his cereal. “I was going to fix you breakfast,” I said. He grinned. “I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out.” “No one can pour cereal like I can. That’s true.” I crossed the kitchen. He scooted his chair back, and I sat on his lap and put my arms on his shoulders. “Good morning,” I said, right before I kissed him. Oh, yes, this was definitely the way to start the day. “We’re in the house,” he said when we stopped kissing. “Thought we had a rule about not kissing in the house.” “Yeah, we also had a house rule--no falling for the player living with us. You see how good I am at following rules.” He grinned. “Lucky for me. Why don’t you come to Ruby Tuesday for lunch?” “Okay.” “Then practice.” “Definitely.” “Maybe we could do something afterward.” “Absolutely.” He kissed me again. He tasted like bran flakes and raisins and bananas. Me, I tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough. It was an odd combination but it somehow worked.

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.

If you are hungry, you don’t walk into the kitchen and fix what you want. You ask for a menu, then choose an item from it. If you want something that is not on that menu, you can ask the waiter, who will send a request to the cook. But there is no guarantee you’ll get it. What happens inside the walled-off area in question is completely up to the single team that owns it, so long as they don’t change how information can be exchanged. If change becomes necessary, the owners publish a revised set of rules—a new menu, if you will—and all those who rely on them are notified.

Do you have any cheese preferences?” Jack asked. “All cheese is good cheese, Lend said. “True dat.” I nodded solemnly. “You did not just say ‘true dat,’” Arianna said, walking into the kitchen. “Because if you think you have any ability whatsoever to pull that off, we are going to have to have a long, long talk.” “Can I at least use it ironically? Or ‘dude.’ Can I use ‘dude?’ Because I really want to be able to use ‘dude.’” “No. No, you cannot, but thank you for asking. Besides, ironic use always segues into non-ironic use, and unless you suddenly become far cooler or far more actually Californian than you are now, I simply cannot allow it.” “But on Easton Heights—” “You are not going to bring up Cary’s cousin Trevyn’s multiepisode arc where he’s sent there as punishment for his pot-smoking surf-bum ways, are you? Because that arc sucked, and he wasn’t even very hot. Also, what’s the lunatic doing?” She jerked her head toward Jack. He flipped a gorgeous looking omelet onto a plate and placed it with a flourish in front of Lend. “I am providing insurance against frying pan boy deciding to enact all the very painful fantasies he’s no doubt entertained about me for the last few weeks. An omelet this good should rule out any dismemberment vengeance.” “Have you been reading his diary?” I asked. “Because I’ll bet he got really creative with the violence ideas.” “No, I only ever read yours. But let me tell you, one more exclamation mark dotted with a heart while talking about how good a kisser Lend is and I was about ready to do myself in. You’re rather single-minded when it comes to adoring him.” “True dat,” Arianna said, nodding. “How come you can use ‘true dat’ if I can’t?” I asked, rightfully outraged. “Because I’m dead, and none of the rules apply anymore.” Lend ate his omelet, refusing to answer Jack’s questions about just how delicious it was on a scale from cutting off limbs to just breaking his nose. I gave Jack full points for flavor but noted the texture was slightly off, exempting him from name-calling but not from dirty looks. Arianna lounged against the counter, and when I finished first we debated the usage rules of “dude,” “true dat,” and my favorite, “for serious.” “I kind of wish they’d shut up,” Jack said. “Dude, true dat,” Lend answered. Jack nodded solemnly. “For serious.

Would you take it back?” “What?” “If you could go back in time, would you change anything with you and Sera? Telling Carter doesn't count. I’m talking about you guys.” Everything flashed before my eyes in a single breath. The first time I laid eyes on her dressed as Tinker Bell at XS. Moving in day. Our near kiss in the kitchen. Picking her up from Rob's the night she called me. The time she lost her keys. The way her nose scrunches up when she laughs. Movie nights. Twenty-one questions. Falling asleep with her in my arms. Coconut shampoo. And so much pink. “No. I wouldn’t change a single thing.

JOINT CUSTODY Why did I never see it for what it was: abundance? Two families, two different kitchen tables, two sets of rules, two creeks, two highways, two stepparents with their fish tanks or eight-tracks or cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or reading skills. I cannot reverse it, the record scratched and stopping to that original chaotic track. But let me say, I was taken back and forth on Sundays and it was not easy but I was loved each place. And so I have two brains now. Two entirely different brains. The one that always misses where I’m not, and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.

Shadow enjoyed the easy, sweet Sunday life of the farmhouse when the two women traded stories and song. Coffee and cream. Laughter and tears. He liked Lora. She brought him creamy treats, not the dry stuff. And when she laughed at his snoring underneath the table, she would awaken him so he would not miss any of the action. He enjoyed this ma-triarchate much more than Ted’s rough reign. Sometimes, lying at the feet of Lora and Alice, on the cool kitchen floor, Shadow dreamed. He dreamed of the ancient times when tribal mothers ruled. Men hunted, but it was the women who shaped the wolves and the babies by the ring of fire into magic dogs and magic men.

That’s bullshit! No way. Am I right, Mordecai? He can’t just”—she swung her hand over the table—“waltz in here, mess with her mind, and then take off. That’s fucked up.” She put her finger in the air and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I know the new rule is no swearing—” “That’s always been the rule—” “—but this warrants it. He stalks you, gets his mom freed, gets some punani, and then he walks?” She stood from the table and paced the kitchen floor, acting the part of the scorned woman on my behalf. “He needs his dick cut off, that’s what he needs.” A smile emerged on Bria’s face as she watched Daisy. “This kid is my spirit animal.” “I thought you wanted this,” I said to Daisy. “He’s severing the connection.

The first time I was ever called ugly, I was thirteen. It was a rich friend of my brother Carlton's, over to shoot guns in the field. "Why you crying girl?" Constantine asked me in the kitchen. I told her what the boy had called me, tears streaming down my face, "Well? Is you?" I blinked, paused my crying. "Is I what?" "Now you look a here, Eugenia" - because Constantine was the only one who'd occasionally follow Mama's rule. "Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?" "I don't know. I don't think so." I sobbed. Constantine sat down next to me, at the kitchen table. I heard the cracking of her swollen joints. She pressed her thumb hard in the palm of my hand, something we both knew meant 'Listen. Listen to me.' "Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision." Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. "You gone have to ask yourself, 'Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?' She kept her thumb pressed hard in my hand. I nodded that I understood. I was just smart enough to realize she meant white people. And even though I still felt miserable, and knew what I was, most likely, ugly, it was the first time she ever talked to me like I was something besides my mother's white child. All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry. I don't know what made me think of them. I had hidden them beneath several packages of dried pasta. Sam liked pistachio nuts. I bought them for a cake recipe I had seen in Gourmet. I stood up like a sleepwalker, my hands empty of sheets or shoes. I would take care of all this once the cake was in the oven. The recipe was from several months ago. I didn't remember which issue. I would find it. I would bake a cake. My father liked exotic things. On the rare occasions we went out to dinner together over the years, he always wanted us to go to some little Ethiopian restaurant down a back alley or he would say he had to have Mongolian food. He would like this cake. It was Iranian. There was a full tablespoon of cardamom sifted in with the flour, and I could imagine that it would make the cake taste nearly peppered, which would serve to balance out all the salt. I stood in the kitchen, reading the magazine while the sharp husks of the nuts bit into the pads of my fingers. I rolled the nut meat between my palms until the bright spring green of the pistachios shone in my hands, a fist full of emeralds. I would grind the nuts into powder without letting them turn to paste. I would butter the parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan. It was the steps, the clear and simple rules baking, that soothed me. My father would love this cake, and my mother would find this cake interesting, and Sam wouldn't be crazy about it but he'd be hungry and have a slice anyway. Maybe I could convince Camille it wasn't a cake at all. Maybe I could bring them all together, or at least that's what I dreamed about while I measured out the oil.

The greatest teams I have worked with over the years were all structured with a few remarkable exceptions to the rules. During my years serving on the board of sweetgreen, a chain of locally sourced seasonal-food kitchens, I was struck by how well the company’s three cofounders, Jonathan, Nic, and Nate, functioned as tri-CEOs. When I first joined the board, many of my peers told me “Good luck—that is nuts!” But the three of them had transformed the traditional CEO role to uniquely serve the company. They divided and conquered most functions in the business but shared the same core values and intuitively knew which decisions could be made by any of them, only one of them, or required all of them. “I feel like we’re pretty lucky because we can share the responsibility of taking action. It’s not just one person’s job to figure something out. It’s not just one person that has all of the weight on their shoulders,” Jonathan told me when I asked him about the arrangement. Nic added,

Baking and cooking bring me inner peace, like a tasty version of yoga, without all the awkward stretching and sweating. When my life spins out of control, when I can't make sense of what's going on in the world, I head straight to the kitchen and turn on my oven, and with the press of a button, I switch one part of my brain off and another on. The rules of the kitchen are straightforward, and when I'm there I don't have to think about my problems. I don't need to think about anything but cups and ounces, temperatures and cooking times. When I was a freshman at Cornell, I heard a plane had flown into the World Trade Center while sitting in my Introduction to American History lecture. My friends and I ran back to our dorm rooms and spent the next few hours glued to the television. I kept my TV on all day, but after talking to my parents and watching three hours of the coverage, I headed straight to the communal kitchen and baked a triple batch of brownies, which I then distributed to everyone on my floor. Some of my friends thought I was crazy ("Who bakes brownies when the country is under attack?"), but it was the only thing I could do to keep from having a panic attack or bursting into tears. I couldn't control what was happening to our country, but I could control what was happening in that kitchen. Baking was my way of restoring order in a world driven by chaos, and it still is.

My mother worked as a saleslady at the well-known Five Corner bakery in Journal Square during the day. Her orders were that I do at least one page of homework for every one of my subjects before she came home. It didn’t matter what my teachers would assign, those were her rules and I didn’t dare to violate them! However, I usually allowed others to make the rules and then decide whether I would follow them. Turning on our small Bakelite radio, I would ignore my mother’s rules and listen to my favorite adventure shows. “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Superman, who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Tom Mix were my favorite daily half-hour radio programs during the week. Tom Mix was forever solving some mystery that I could help him with, since I had a decoder badge that cost only 10 cents, along with a box top from a Ralston Purina’s “Wheat Chex” cereal box. Since it tasted like straw, wanting to get a decoder badge was the only way I would eat this blah cereal for breakfast. The radio shows were way too exciting, and my homework always took second place. When my mother finally came home and saw that I had not done my work, she would get quite upset and make me do twice as much, seated at the kitchen table where she could keep her eye on me. Being under her direct supervision wasn’t much fun, but I would sit there until she was satisfied that I had finished my assignments. My mother showed no mercy! If my father found out about my being lax, there would be hell to pay! For whatever reason, I never seemed to learn…. Oh, woe is me, woe is me…. I was in trouble again… No, I was still in trouble!

Before she could think of what to say, he grasped the axe and turned toward her, his face a mass of angles in the lanternlight. "Step back." This was a man who expected to be heeded. He did not wait to see if she followed his direction before he lifted the axe high above his head. She pressed herself into the corner of the dark room as he attacked the furniture with a vengeance, her surprise making her unable to resist watching him. He was built beautifully. Like a glorious Roman statue, all strong, lean muscles outlined by the crisp linen of his shirtsleeves when he lifted the tool overhead, his hands sliding purposefully along the haft, fingers grasping tightly as he brought the steel blade down into the age-old oak with a mighty thwack, sending a splinter of oak flying across the kitchen, landing atop the long-unused stove. He splayed one long-fingered hand flat on the table, gripping the axe once more to work the blade out of the wood. He turned his head as he stood back, making sure she was out of the way of any potential projectiles- a movement she could not help but find comforting- before confronting the furniture and taking his next swing with a mighty heave. The blade sliced into the oak, but the table held. He shook his head and yanked the axe out once more, this time aiming for one of the remaining table legs. Thwack! Penelope's eyes went wide as the lanternlight caught the way his wool trousers wrapped tightly around his massive thighs. She should not notice... should not be paying attention to such obvious... maleness. But she'd never seen legs like his. Thwack! Never imagined they could be so... compelling. Thwack! Could not help it. Thwack!

THE OBEDIENCE GAME DUGGAR KIDS GROW UP playing the Obedience Game. It’s sort of like Mother May I? except it has a few extra twists—and there’s no need to double-check with “Mother” because she (or Dad) is the one giving the orders. It’s one way Mom and Dad help the little kids in the family burn off extra energy some nights before we all put on our pajamas and gather for Bible time (more about that in chapter 8). To play the Obedience Game, the little kids all gather in the living room. After listening carefully to Mom’s or Dad’s instructions, they respond with “Yes, ma’am, I’d be happy to!” then run and quickly accomplish the tasks. For example, Mom might say, “Jennifer, go upstairs to the girls’ room, touch the foot of your bed, then come back downstairs and give Mom a high-five.” Jennifer answers with an energetic “Yes, ma’am, I’d be happy to!” and off she goes. Dad might say, “Johannah, run around the kitchen table three times, then touch the front doorknob and come back.” As Johannah stands up she says, “Yes, sir, I’d be happy to!” “Jackson, go touch the front door, then touch the back door, then touch the side door, and then come back.” Jackson, who loves to play army, stands at attention, then salutes and replies, “Yes, sir, I’d be happy to!” as he goes to complete his assignment at lightning speed. Sometimes spotters are sent along with the game player to make sure the directions are followed exactly. And of course, the faster the orders can be followed, the more applause the contestant gets when he or she slides back into the living room, out of breath and pleased with himself or herself for having complied flawlessly. All the younger Duggar kids love to play this game; it’s a way to make practicing obedience fun! THE FOUR POINTS OF OBEDIENCE THE GAME’S RULES (MADE up by our family) stem from our study of the four points of obedience, which Mom taught us when we were young. As a matter of fact, as we are writing this book she is currently teaching these points to our youngest siblings. Obedience must be: 1. Instant. We answer with an immediate, prompt “Yes ma’am!” or “Yes sir!” as we set out to obey. (This response is important to let the authority know you heard what he or she asked you to do and that you are going to get it done as soon as possible.) Delayed obedience is really disobedience. 2. Cheerful. No grumbling or complaining. Instead, we respond with a cheerful “I’d be happy to!” 3. Thorough. We do our best, complete the task as explained, and leave nothing out. No lazy shortcuts! 4. Unconditional. No excuses. No, “That’s not my job!” or “Can’t someone else do it? or “But . . .” THE HIDDEN GOAL WITH this fun, fast-paced game is that kids won’t need to be told more than once to do something. Mom would explain the deeper reason behind why she and Daddy desired for us to learn obedience. “Mom and Daddy won’t always be with you, but God will,” she says. “As we teach you to hear and obey our voice now, our prayer is that ultimately you will learn to hear and obey what God’s tells you to do through His Word.” In many families it seems that many of the goals of child training have been lost. Parents often expect their children to know what they should say and do, and then they’re shocked and react harshly when their sweet little two-year-old throws a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. This parental attitude probably stems from the belief that we are all born basically good deep down inside, but the truth is, we are all born with a sin nature. Think about it: You don’t have to teach a child to hit, scream, whine, disobey, or be selfish. It comes naturally. The Bible says that parents are to “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Sam’s the man who’s come to chop us up to bits. No wonder I kicked him out. No wonder I changed the locks. If he cannot stop death, what good is he? ‘Open the door. Please. I’m so tired,’ he says. I look at the night that absorbed my life. How am I supposed to know what’s love, what’s fear? ‘If you’re Sam who am I?’ ‘I know who you are.’ ‘You do?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Who?’ Don’t say wife, I think. Don’t say mother. I put my face to the glass, but it’s dark. I don’t reflect. Sam and I watch each other through the window of the kitchen door. He coughs some more. ‘I want to come home,’ he says. ‘I want us to be okay. That’s it. Simple. I want to come home and be a family.’ ‘But I am not simple.’ My body’s coursing with secret genes and hormones and proteins. My body made eyeballs and I have no idea how. There’s nothing simple about eyeballs. My body made food to feed those eyeballs. How? And how can I not know or understand the things that happen inside my body? That seems very dangerous. There’s nothing simple here. I’m ruled by elixirs and compounds. I am a chemistry project conducted by a wild child. I am potentially explosive. Maybe I love Sam because hormones say I need a man to kill the coyotes at night, to bring my babies meat. But I don’t want caveman love. I want love that lives outside the body. I want love that lives. ‘In what ways are you not simple?’ I think of the women I collected upstairs. They’re inside me. And they are only a small fraction of the catalog. I think of molds, of the sea, the biodiversity of plankton. I think of my dad when he was a boy, when he was a tree bud. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say, and then the things I don’t say yet. Words aren’t going to be the best way here. How to explain something that’s coming into existence? ‘I get that now.’ His shoulders tremble some. They jerk. He coughs. I have infected him. ‘Sam.’ We see each other through the glass. We witness each other. That’s something, to be seen by another human, to be seen over all the years. That’s something, too. Love plus time. Love that’s movable, invisible as a liquid or gas, love that finds a way in. Love that leaks. ‘Unlock the door,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to love you because I’m scared.’ ‘So you imagine bad things about me. You imagine me doing things I’ve never done to get rid of me. Kick me out so you won’t have to worry about me leaving?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Right.’ And I’m glad he gets that. Sam cocks his head the same way a coyote might, a coyote who’s been temporarily confused by a question of biology versus mortality. What’s the difference between living and imagining? What’s the difference between love and security? Coyotes are not moral. ‘Unlock the door?’ he asks. This family is an experiment, the biggest I’ve ever been part of, an experiment called: How do you let someone in? ‘Unlock the door,’ he says again. ‘Please.’ I release the lock. I open the door. That’s the best definition of love. Sam comes inside. He turns to shut the door, then stops himself. He stares out into the darkness where he came from. What does he think is out there? What does he know? Or is he scared I’ll kick him out again? That is scary. ‘What if we just left the door open?’ he asks. ‘Open.’ And more, more things I don’ts say about the bodies of women. ‘Yeah.’ ‘What about skunks?’ I mean burglars, gangs, evil. We both peer out into the dark, looking for thees scary things. We watch a long while. The night does nothing. ‘We could let them in if they want in,’ he says, but seems uncertain still. ‘Really?’ He draws the door open wider and we leave it that way, looking out at what we can’t see. Unguarded, unafraid, love and loved. We keep the door open as if there are no doors, no walls, no skin, no houses, no difference between us and all the things we think of as the night.

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?

It’s a basic fact of their relationship that Olivia wants sex more often than Patrick does, so she ends up initiating most of the time. But Olivia’s experience of being the target of Patrick’s placebo-powered rampant lust the previous night had given her a powerful insight: It had felt good to be open to sex, without feeling driven to have sex. It had felt good to allow sexual desire to pull her gradually and gently toward sex, rather than feeling like it was pushing her. So as the next step in their experiment, they tried flipping their usual dynamic on its head. They set a “date night” and then didn’t do anything to prepare; they just showed up that night in their usual states of mind—Olivia ready to go, Patrick not disinterested, but not actively interested either. And they made Olivia follow her partner’s lead, while Patrick started to explore what kinds of things he could do to shift himself into active interest. They spent a lot of time “preheating the oven”: kissing and talking and massaging—and, surprisingly, a little adventure, moving from the bedroom to the kitchen to feed each other. When Patrick was in charge with full permission to do whatever occurred to him, they tried new things and played together. They learned a lot about what context worked for Patrick, because he had to create that context, had to ask for what felt right. They learned a surprising thing about Olivia, too: When she stayed still enough to move at Patrick’s pace rather than her own naturally faster pace, the gradual buildup and the sustained arousal and the necessity of holding herself back created a context that wasn’t just as good as the context that worked for her. It was unbelievably better. Olivia emailed me: “One of the rules we set was I had to ask for permission before I had an orgasm. And he did not always say yes when I asked. Um, we’ll be doing that again.” In other words: Creating a great sex-positive context for the lower-desire partner resulted in a context that was mind-blowingly, almost painfully erotic for the higher-desire partner. This chapter is about why and how that works.

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?” She didn’t answer. She concentrated on the feel of the table’s edge pressing into the small of her back. The table was simple and real, joined wood and nails and right corners. No wobble. No give. “You’re not mine,” Arin said. And kissed her. Kestrel’s lips parted. This was real, yet not simple at all. He smelled of woodsmoke and sugar. Sweet beneath the burn. He tasted like the honey he’d licked off his fingers minutes before. Her heartbeat skidded, and it was she who leaned greedily into the kiss, she who slid one knee between his legs. Then his breath went ragged and the kiss grew dark and deep. He lifted her up onto the table so that her face was level with his, and as they kissed it seemed that words were hiding in the air around them, that they were invisible creatures that feathered against her and Arin, then nudged, and buzzed, and tugged. Speak, they said. Speak, the kiss answered. Love was on the tip of Kestrel’s tongue. But she couldn’t say that. How could she ever say that, after everything between them, after fifty keystones paid into the auctioneer's hand, after hours of Kestrel secretly wondering what it would sound like if Arin sang while she played, after wrists bound together and the crack of her knee under a boot and Arin confessing in the carriage on Firstwinter night. It had felt like a confession. But it wasn’t. He had said nothing of the plot. Even if he had, it still would have been too late, with everything to his advantage. Kestrel remembered again her promise to Jess. If she didn’t leave this house now, she would betray herself. She would give herself to someone whose Firstwinter kiss had led her to believe she was all that he wanted, when he had hoped to flip the world so that he was at its top and she was at its bottom. Kestrel pulled away. Arin was apologizing. He was asking what he had done wrong. His face was flushed, mouth swollen. He was saying something about how maybe it was too soon, but that they could have a life here. Together. “My soul is yours,” he said. “You know that it is.” She lifted a hand, as much to block his face from her sight as to stop those words. She walked out of the kitchen. It took all of her pride not to run.

8:00am The sun is shining, the cows are mooing, and I am ready for the mines. I hope I find something awesome today. Steve has told me about some pretty crazy things I had no idea existed. According to him, I must find empty tombs in the desert. That’s where the real treasures are. For today, I will stick to regular mining. Who knows, maybe I will come across an abandoned mine shaft; could be my lucky day.   12:30pm I was forced to come home for lunch today because I had too much stuff to carry. I was getting low on my iron ore, gold, and lapis lazuli stocks before this mine trip. It’s amazing how quick lapis goes when you are busy enchanting everything but the kitchen sink. I’d enchant that too if I had one. I wonder what an enchanted kitchen sink would do. Would it do my dishes for me? That would be so cool.   I have plenty of both now. I can make some new armor and enchant it! I love mining.   Steve decided to join me for lunch and we ate a couple of pork chops and some cake. I love cake! We ate until no more food could fill us up. Then, Steve had the guts to brag about how, when he mines, he takes a horse with extra storage so he can stay down there all day long. Well fancy you, Steve.   He also went on to tell me about how well the crops are doing these days. He thinks it’s because he is looking after them half of the time. What he doesn’t know is I throw bone marrow on them when I am working. Makes my job faster and gives me more free time so whatever you need to tell yourself, Steve.   Life may be easier switching every day between mines and farming, but it still doesn’t make me his biggest fan. I just don’t think he needs to fall in a hole, either. At least… Not right now. I would consider us to be frienemies; Friendly enemies. Yes. At times we pretend to get along, but most of the time, we are happiest doing our own thing.   6:00pm Mining this afternoon was super fun… Not! I got attacked by a partially hidden skeleton guy. I couldn’t see him enough to strike back until half of my life hearts were gone. I must not have made the space bright enough. Those guys are nasty. They are hard to kill too. If you don’t have a bow and arrow you might as well surrender. Plus, they kind of smell like death. Yuck.   Note to self: Bring more torches on the next mining day.   On the other hand, I came back with an overshare of Redstone, too much iron for my own good, and oddly, quite a few diamonds. I won’t be sharing the diamonds with anyone. They are far too precious. They will go to some new diamond pickaxes, and maybe some armor. Hmm, I could enchant those too! The iron and Redstone though, I am thinking a trip to the village may be in order. See what those up-tight weirdos are willing to trade me.   For now, it’s bedtime.   6:10pm You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night.   6:11pm That stupid rule gets me every time. Why can’t I decide when it’s bed time?   First, I will go eat a cookie, then I will go to sleep. Day Thirty-Three   3:00am I just dreamt that our world was made of cookies.

Amazing.” Anders glanced around with a start. He found Lucian leaning against the door frame, eyeing him with amusement. “What?” he asked, sitting up straight. “How everything can change so swiftly,” Lucian said dryly, moving into the kitchen. Anders watched him get a glass out of the cupboard before asking mildly, “And what is it you think is changing?” “Three days ago when you first realized you couldn’t read her and that she might possibly be your life mate, you weren’t happy,” Lucian said. He filled the glass with water, took a drink, and then continued, “You didn’t like the idea of anyone stealing so much of your attention, of having something to lose, of becoming a mother hen like me, or of being led around by your dick. Now you want to follow that presently very evident dick upstairs and claim Valerie by any means necessary.” Anders glanced down to note that not only did he still have an erection, but it was very evident in his boxers. Grabbing one of the couch pillows, he dragged it over his lap and muttered, “You caught all that from reading my thoughts, did you?” “Clear as glass,” Lucian said. “Right.” Anders said and grimaced at the knowledge that Lucian had read his less than complimentary thoughts about his worry for Leigh and being led around by his dick. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Do I owe you an apology?” “Nope. I can hardly complain when I was eavesdropping on your thoughts.” He took another drink of his water. As Lucian lowered the glass, he swallowed, and added, “But I’d go softly with Valerie. I wouldn’t want you to rush things and blow it.” “Thanks for the advice,” Anders said dryly. “I’m serious,” Lucian said softly. Anders stilled. As a rule, Lucian could be counted on to growl, grunt, or bark. His voice only got that soft, solemn sound on very rare occasions. When it did, you were smart to listen. Anders nodded. “I’m listening.” “She just experienced a nightmarish two weeks at the hands of what she thinks is a vampire. One of our kind,” he pointed out. “Ten days and nights in the flesh and three in fever-driven nightmares.” “But we aren’t vampires,” Anders pointed out. “We’re immortals.” “Semantics,” Lucian said with a shrug. “It won’t make any difference to her whether we are the mythological cursed and soulless beast Stoker wrote about, or scientifically evolved mortals turned nearly immortal by bio-engineered nanos that were introduced into our blood before the fall of Atlantis.” “Scientifically evolved mortals who need more blood than the human body can produce to power those nanos,” Anders added wearily. Lucian nodded. “We have fangs, we don’t age, we are hard to kill and we need blood to survive. To her and many others, we are vampires.” “We drink bagged blood to survive now,” Anders argued. “The immortal who kidnapped and held Valerie and the other women is a rogue.” “True,” Lucian agreed. “Unfortunately, Valerie’s first encounter with our kind was via that rogue. She, understandably, is not going to be very receptive to the possibility that there are good guys among our kind. She needs to get to know and trust us, you especially, before you reveal too much.” Anders nodded, seeing the wisdom in what he said. Then he cleared his throat and asked, “By don’t reveal too much, you aren’t including—” “No,” Lucian said, rare amusement curving his lips. “Bed her all you want, just keep your mouth shut while you do. At least until you think she can handle it. Otherwise,” he warned, “you could lose the chance of a lifetime.

The first rule of Thug Kitchen is: Read the recipe.

They had lunch in the kitchen, everyone naked and enjoying the sight of one another’s bodies. Hans had never been happier. He felt as if he were surrounded by family. Thomas and Boris weren’t treating him like a housekeeper or even a cute guy they wanted to fuck occasionally. They seemed happy to welcome him back. Hans was still intensely aware they were married, and he was a third wheel, but for now it didn’t matter. He belonged with them.

...Denise left the kitchen and took the plate to Alfred, for whom the problem of existence was this: that, in the manner of a wheat seedling thrusting itself up out of the earth, the world moved forward in a time by adding cell after cell to its leading edge, piling moment on moment, and that to grasp the world even in its freshest youngest moment provided no guarantee that you'd be able to grasp it again a moment later. By the time he'd established his daughter Denise was handing him a plate of snacks in his son Chip's living room, the next moment in time was already budding itself into a pristinely ungrasped existence in which he couldn't absolutely rule out the possibility, for example, that his wife Enid was handing him a plate of feces in the parlor of a brothel.

Filming wildlife documentaries couldn’t have happened without John Stainton, our producer. Steve always referred to John as the genius behind the camera, and that was true. The music orchestration, the editing, the knowledge of what would make good television and what wouldn’t--these were all areas of John’s clear expertise. But on the ground, under the water, or in the bush, while we were actually filming, it was 100 percent Steve. He took care of the crew and eventually his family as well, while filming in some of the most remote, inaccessible, and dangerous areas on earth. Steve kept the cameraman alive by telling him exactly when to shoot and when to run. He orchestrated what to film and where to film, and then located the wildlife. Steve’s first rule, which he repeated to the crew over and over, was a simple one: Film everything, no matter what happens. “If something goes wrong,” he told the crew, “you are not going to be of any use to me lugging a camera and waving your other arm around trying to help. Just keep rolling. Whatever the sticky situation is, I will get out of it.” Just keep rolling. Steve’s mantra. On all of our documentary trips, Steve packed the food, set up camp, fed the crew. He knew to take the extra tires, the extra fuel, the water, the gear. He anticipated the needs of six adults and two kids on every film shoot we ever went on. As I watched him at Lakefield, the situation was no different. Our croc crew came and went, and the park rangers came and went, and Steve wound up organizing anywhere from twenty to thirty people. Everyone did their part to help. But the first night, I watched while one of the crew put up tarps to cover the kitchen area. After a day or two, the tarps slipped, the ropes came undone, and water poured off into our camp kitchen. After a full day of croc capture, Steve came back into camp that evening. He made no big deal about it. He saw what was going on. I watched him wordlessly shimmy up a tree, retie the knots, and resecure the tarps. What was once a collection of saggy, baggy tarps had been transformed into a well-secured roof. Steve had the smooth and steady movements of someone who was self-assured after years of practice. He’d get into the boat, fire up the engine, and start immediately. There was never any hesitation. His physical strength was unsurpassed. He could chop wood, gather water, and build many things with an ease that was awkwardly obvious when anybody else (myself, for example) tried to struggle with the same task. But when I think of all his bush skills, I treasured most his way of delivering up the natural world. On that croc research trip in the winter of 2006, Steve presented me with a series of memories more valuable than any piece of jewelry.

House rule number nine. No roach shall drink or eat out of the good cups in the kitchen. The plastic cups are in the pantry.

I crossed the kitchen. He scooted his chair back, and I sat on his lap and put my arms on his shoulders. “Good morning,” I said, right before I kissed him. Oh, yes, this was definitely the way to start the day. “We’re in the house,” he said when we stopped kissing. “Thought we had a rule about not kissing in the house.” “Yeah, we also had a house rule--no falling for the player living with us. You see how good I am at following rules.” He grinned. “Lucky for me.

no more stolen moments, let alone hours, in which to discover each other . . . from now on, they were formally betrothed, and that betrothal had its own rules. Maddening, perhaps intentionally so. Luci filched another stuffed date from the tray a sleepy maidservant was carrying back to the kitchen, and followed her father into the library. Her uncle and grandfather, already relaxed in chairs by the fireplace, looked up as she came in. "Luci, you should be in bed." "Papa, I'm not sleepy." He raised his eyebrows at her, but she didn't move. "Papa, I had a message cube from Esmay today." Her uncle Casimir sighed. "Esmay . . . now there's another problem. Berthold, did you get anywhere in the Landsmen's Guild?" "Nowhere. Oh, Vicarios won't oppose us, but that's because of Luci, and his support is half-hearted. It would be different if she hadn't left so young, I think. They don't really remember her, and even though they awarded her the Starmount, and consider her a hero, they do not want a Landbride—any Landbride but especially our Landbride—connected to an outlander family. Cosca told me frankly that even if she moved here, and also her husband, he would oppose it. Nothing good ever came from the stars, he insisted." "And the votes?" "Enough for a challenge, Casi, I'm sure of it. No, the only way out of this is for Esmaya to come and talk to them herself." "Or resign." "Or resign, but—will she?" Luci spoke up. "She mentioned that in her cube." "What—resigning? Why?" "Her precious Fleet seems to think about us the way the Landsmen's Guild thinks about them. She says they have some kind of regulation forbidding officers to marry Landbrides." Her father snorted. "Do they have one forbidding officers to be Landbrides? How ridiculous!" "Are you serious?" Casimir asked. "They have something specific about Landbrides? How would they know?" "I don't know," Luci said. "That's just what she said. And she said why didn't we take in all those women brought back from Our Texas—she was sure they'd fit in." A stunned silence, satisfying by its depth and length. "She what?" Casimir said finally. "Aren't those women—" "Free-birthers and religious cultists," Luci said, with satisfaction. "Exactly." "But—but the priests will object," Berthold said. "Not as badly as the Landsmen's Guild, if they hear of it. Dear God, I thought she had more sense than that!" "She is in love," Luci pointed out, willing now to be magnanimous. "Apparently Fleet is taking Barin's salary to pay for their upkeep—at least some of it—and Esmay's trying to help him out. Nineteen of them, after all, and all those children." "At our expense." Casimir shook his head. "Well, that settles it. She'll have to resign, as soon as I can get word to her. The Trustees will certainly not approve this, if I were willing to let it be known." He gave Luci a hard look. "You didn't tell Philip, I hope." "Of course not." Luci glared at her uncle. Esmay might not have any sense, but she knew what the family honor required. "I hope she does name you Landbride, Luci," Casimir said. "You'll be a good one." Luci had a sudden spasm of doubt. Was she being fair to Esmay, who after all had had so many bad things happen to her? But underneath the doubt, the same exultation she had felt when Esmay gave her the brown mare . . . mine, it's mine, I can take care of it, nobody can hurt it . . . "I wonder if we could place an ansible call," Casimir said. "Surely it's not that urgent,

It's not their theories I object to, but them themselves. You think if you married Moreton you'd be going into a great new world of idealism. You wouldn't. You'd be going into a world of failure—of the pettiest, most futile quarrels in the world. The chief characteristic of the man who fails is that he always believes it's the other fellow's fault; and they hate the man who differs with them by one per cent more than they hate the man who differs by one hundred. Has there ever been a revolution where they did not persecute their fellow revolutionists worse than they persecuted the old order, or where the new rule wasn't more tyrannical than the old?

When at last we arrived in Mannheim, I found that my apartment had been rented to a family whose young son was an amputee. I had conscientiously paid our landlady the entire time we were gone and now that I returned and needed my apartment I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt upset that these people usurped what was ours and I didn’t find much comfort when they offered us one of the bedrooms to live in. Frustrated as I was, there was nobody I could turn to. The rule of law had been suspended, so the only thing I could do was accept their offer. As I moved into what had been my bedroom, they reluctantly agreed that I could share the kitchen and use one of the burners on the stove. Climbing up into the attic, I found a bed that my husband Richard had used when he was a student. Now I had to cram onto it with the children every night and it always became a contest as to who got the pillow. None of us got much rest but the experience did bring us closer together. Frequently I wound up on the floor. Somehow I found a vicarious joy in seeing that my furniture, which the other family had been using, was becoming warped from moisture damage. It had been in a room where the window was blown out during one of the air raids. Of course this exposed everything to the weather, and so the frequent rains ruined the table and much of the other furniture. I really grew to dislike these people and with each passing day things became worse. One day while trying to balance three pots on one burner, I got an idea as to what I would do next….

After a few minutes, Mrs. Byrne puts down her fork and says, “Dorothy, it’s time to discuss the rules of the house. As you already know, you are to use the privy in the back. Once a week, on Sunday evenings, I will draw a bath for you in the tub in the washroom off the kitchen. Sunday is also washday, which you’ll be expected to help with. Bedtime is at nine P.M., with lights out. There’s a pallet for you in the hall closet. You’ll bring it out in the evenings and roll it up neatly in the morning, before the girls arrive at eight thirty.” “I’ll be sleeping—in the hallway?” I ask with surprise. “Mercy, you don’t expect to sleep on the second floor with us, do you?” she says with a laugh. “Heaven forbid.

The Barrier or Boundary: General Considerations The cornerstone of setting limits at night is ensuring that your child stays in the room where he should be sleeping. If he doesn’t stay in the room, you can’t enforce any nighttime rules at all; to enforce them, you must be prepared to use a barrier. Taking him back to his room over and over is not effective—in fact, he will probably perceive it as a game, especially if he has to be chased around the house, or if he can sneak out of the room when you’re not watching. Threats and punishments are counterproductive: a young child should not be punished for a lack of self-control at night, when self-control is hardest. Do not insist that your child take on a job that he cannot yet handle; you must take it over for him. If you dislike the idea of having a barrier, remember that in any case your young child cannot be allowed to wander freely around the house while you sleep. He may usually go to your room, true, but he could just as easily go somewhere more hazardous, such as the kitchen. He may also be confused in the middle of the night, half-awake and unsure of where he is going and why, and that will put him at additional risk. (Some children consciously and intentionally head away from their parents at night so they can do things that they are not normally allowed to do.) A strategically placed gate at the top of the stairs or in the hallway will keep your child in a restricted part of the house and probably safe. But you are still better off requiring him to stay in the room where he sleeps and putting the gate at the doorway of that room to enforce the rule.

For the time being, the young pigs were given their instruction by Napoleon himself in the farmhouse kitchen. They took their exercise in the garden, and were discouraged from playing with the other young animals. About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside: and also that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.

I’ve found that it’s useful to distinguish between pain and suffering, because pain and suffering are two different things. Pain is the inevitable and unavoidable part of being human and of being an estranged parent. Unfortunately, you have relatively little control over that. However, you can gain increasing control and awareness over how long you feel pain. You can reduce the meaning of it, the actions you take that increase it, and the distance the pain travels through other aspects of your life. That’s the suffering part. The difference between pain and suffering is an insight that found its way from Buddhist teachings into contemporary psychotherapy. Psychiatrist Mark Levine, who developed the Mind to Mindful program, gives this example: “Let’s say I stub my toe walking across the kitchen floor and it really hurts. That’s pain. But then I start telling myself a bunch of things about stubbing my toe such as ‘You idiot, why don’t you watch where you’re going?’ Or ‘Next time you’re going to fall flat on your face or break your hip!’ Or ‘This is so typical of you to be so clumsy. Just one more example of what a screw-up you are!’ ” That’s suffering. Suffering lengthens the experience of pain because it creates an endless cognitive feedback loop where pain is always its terminus. Where suffering begets suffering begets suffering.

The Beverly Hillbillies?" Roger says. "Yeah," I say. "Call it therapy for the sleep-deprived." "Really?" He shakes his head. "A bunch of hicks jumping around acting stupid?" I stiffen. My acquired Yankee accent may sound like his, but I don't appreciate it when people from up north move south for the warm weather and then disrespect southerners. I recite the thesis from my freshman television studies paper. "Listen, Roger, The Beverly Hillbillies is based on a classic archetype: the stranger in a strange land." "Oh yeah?" he says. I lean against the kitchen doorway and hook one pink slipper over the other. "You see, the viewer identifies with the residents of Beverly Hills, who live by the rules of the 'regular' world. But Jed and Granny and Elly May reverse our expectations. We end up empathizing with them because our own cultural norms prove cold-hearted and illogical." "This is so interesting," he says, checking his watch. "Yes, it is, Roger, because we have come to understand that the naïve but kind 'hicks' are wiser than those who consider themselves sophisticated and smart.

Escape was always possible; in every Indian town there was a corner of comparative order and cleanliness in which one could recover and cherish one's self-respect. In India the easiest and most necessary thing to ignore was the most obvious. The colonial mimicry is a special mimicry of an old country without a native aristocracy for a thousand years who has learned to make room for outsiders, but only at the top. The mimicry changes, the inner world remains constant: this is the secret of survival. Yesterday the mimicry was Mogul; tomorrow it might be Russian or American; today it is English. The Indian lavatory and the Indian kitchen are the visitor's nightmare. The attitude of the foreigner who does not understand the function of the beggar in India and is judging India by the standards of Europe. Physical effort is to be avoided as a degradation. Every man is an island; each man to his function, his private contract with God. This is the realization of the Gita's selfless action. An eastern conception of dignity and function, reposing on symbolic action: this is the dangerous, decayed pragmatism of caste. Symbolic dress, symbolic food, symbolic worship. India deals in symbols, inaction. Inaction arising out of proclaimed function, function out of caste. India, it was said, brought our concealed elements of the personality. It is well that Indians are unable to look at their country directly, for the distress they would see would drive them mad. And it is well that they have no sense of history, for how then would they be able to continue to squat amid their ruins and which Indian would be able to read the history of his country for the last thousand years without anger and pain? It is better to retreat into fantasy and fatalism, to trust to the stars in which the fortunes of all are written. Respect for the past is new in Europe and it was Europe that revealed India's past to India and made its veneration part of Indian nationalism. It is still through European eyes that India looks at her ruins and her art. The virtues of R.K. Narayan are Indian failing magically transmuted. Out of all its squalor and human decay, its eruptions of butchery, India produced so many people of grace and beauty, ruled by elaborate courtesy. Producing too much life, it denied the value of life, yet it permitted a unique human development to so many.

When a family of grandparents, the sons and wives, their grandsons who may also be married, live together, perhaps under the same roof and sharing the same hearth and kitchen, it is important that its members should be compatible to the greatest possible degree. Suppose a young man from a rural area went to agricultural college in Ludhiana and somehow met a medical student who, it may be adduced, came from a well-to-do urban family with servants who did the cooking and cleaning. They fall in love and marry. She gives up her training, as would normally be expected, to live with her husband’s family where she is expected to cook, clean, help on the farm and perhaps even lay a cow dung floor. This may be an extreme example but hopefully it demonstrates the importance of arranged marriages in an extended family culture and the sense of marrying within the occupational group. Even in a less contrasting situation a girl has to fit in with her mother-in-law who rules the kitchen, and with existing and therefore senior sisters-in-law.

laundry rules 1. Laundry baskets go in bedrooms Laundry baskets go everywhere. They go in every room even and especially in the kitchen and living room. 2. Wash clothes when the bins are full Wash only on Mondays and wash everything on Monday. Eventually this day will become synonymous with laundry and it will be easier to remember. 3. Sort darks and whites Load everything together. Do not sort. Wash on cold. 4. Transfer from washer to dryer quickly Set a timer once the washer starts. Set timer again once dryer starts. 5. Fold clothes Create multiple bins/baskets for clothes and toss them in unfolded. Hang a few shirts. 6. Put away in everyone’s different closets in their room All clothes are stored in one room, which is the en suite closet off the laundry area. It makes no sense to take clothes to three different closets when I am the person dressing all three of those people. Sit on butt and put away every family member’s laundry in under eight minutes without moving. making laundry serve you Laundry does not have to be done the way you have always been taught to do it.

So I told her. I told her how Evey and I had met Tinker at The Hotspot on New Year’s Eve and how the three of us had bandied about—to the Capitol Theatre and Chernoff’s. I told her about Anne Grandyn and how she’d introduced herself at the ‘21’ Club as Tinker’s godmother. I told her about the car crash and Eve’s recovery and the night with the closed-kitchen eggs and the star-crossed kiss at the elevator door. I told her about the steamer to Europe and the letter from Brixham. I told her how I’d talked my way into a new job and insinuated myself into the glamorous lives of Dicky Vanderwhile and Wallace Wolcott and Bitsy Houghton née Van Heuys. And, at long last, I told her about the late night call that I’d received after Eve disappeared and how with my overnight bag in hand I’d skipped to Penn Station like a schoolgirl so that I could catch the Montrealer and take it to a hoot owl and a hearthstone and a can of pork and beans.

UPF has a long, formal scientific definition, but it can be boiled down to this: if it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t usually find in a standard home kitchen, it’s UPF. Much of it will be familiar to you as ‘junk food’, but there’s plenty of organic, free-range, ‘ethical’ UPF too, which might be sold as healthy, nutritious, environmentally friendly or useful for weight loss (it’s another rule of thumb that almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is a UPF).

Still following the rules, huh?" He grabbed his shift off the back of the kitchen chair and pulled it on. "Still breaking them?" she fired back.

My favorite story of this concept is where, one Thanksgiving, a little girl is helping her mother in the kitchen. “Mom, I see you cut the ham in half. Why did you do that?” she asks her mother. “Oh, it’s a family tradition. We cut the ham in half and we put one half in each oven,” the mother replies. “We bought this house specifically because it had a double oven and it took us months longer than we thought it would to find a house that had a double oven.” “But why do you cut the ham in half?” the daughter asks again. “Well, it’s family tradition and we’ve always done that. I think it makes the food better or something, I don’t really know the answer. Why don’t you ask Grandma?” The little girl goes and asks Grandma and says, “Grandma, why do you cut the ham in half?” “Well, that’s a good question, dear,” Grandma replied. “When your grandfather and I bought our house, we had to spend thousands of dollars extra changing the kitchen around to buy a double oven, because, after all, simply nobody had double ovens in those days. It was really painful, I remember, but it’s a family tradition and we knew it mattered.” The daughter asks again, “Well, why do you do it?” “Well, I don’t really know,” Grandma says. “I don’t know, maybe it’s something to do with the food being better or something. Why don’t you ask your great-grandma?” Great-Grandma is sitting in the living room and she’s old and frail. The little girl goes up to her and says, “Great-Grandma, why does this family always cut the ham in half and cook it in two ovens?” She goes, “Well, I have no idea why my daughter and granddaughter do it, but I did it simply because the oven wasn’t big enough.

Will we have pets?” I bite back the question regarding kids. While this might be a fun fantasy, imagining being responsible for something like that is terrifying. “Sure.” Noah stays near the fire on one bent knee and occasionally pokes it to keep the dwindling flames alive. “I had a dog once.” “What type?” “A mix of some sort. Part Lab, part something smaller than Lab. Its paws were too big for its body, so it skidded across the kitchen floor.” “Is that what you want?” “If we’re going to live alone on a mountain, we need a guard dog. A German shepherd. Something like that.” “Guard dog?” Not what I had in mind for the fantasy. “We need something cute and cuddly.” I squish my fingers in the air as if I have the little puff ball in my hands. “It can sleep in our bed.” “No fucking way, Echo. I’m not sharing my bed with a dog.

Chapter 15 Grace One morning, after an uneventful sojourn at the bath house. The ward received a rare visit from the Physician Superintendent. He walked into the day room accompanied by the charge nurse just as me and Art were preparing the patients for lunch. “Do you say Grace before meals?” inquired the Superintendent of the charge. “Yes Sir.” The charge was well aware of the hospital rules and snapped almost to attention in reply. His response was true. Our charge, being a stickler for the rule book of the institution, always insisted on saying grace. The order was; “Stand behind your chairs.” Usually bellowed by the deputy although Art and I occasionally got the chance. The seventy odd patients milling round in the dining gallery would stand behind their chairs in absolute silence. Years of institutional living had taught them that meals would only be served after a period of absolute silence, followed by grace. The charge, not leaving his chair, would open his office door and poking his head out would call. “For whayouare aboutorecieve maythelor mayoutruly thankful.” To which the patients would dutifully chorus “Amen” and sit down to eat. On this day the “Big Chief” was present and Art and I could tell things were going to be different. “Stand behind your chairs.” Was said. Nothing happened.—Louder, “Stand behind your chairs.” Nothing.—Art bellowed “Stand behind your chairs.” The effect was electric and the mass moved into its lunchtime position of silence standing behind their chairs in the dining room. The charge had slipped into his long white nursing coat. He was going to assist with lunch. He moved away from the side of the Physician Superintendent and stood in the centre of the dining room. There he adopted a posture which he adjudged spiritually appropriate. Hands clasped in front of him, eyes lowered, he bowed his head. Not wishing to get on the wrong side of our boss. Art and I stood one either side of him and followed suit. Absolute silence reigned. Before the charge could proceed any further with this charade the ward kitchen door opened to reveal Benny and Jimmy. They were two long standing ward worker patients who’s job it was to prepare the plates on the servery ready for the meal. Patients assisting with serving meals was against the “rules” and Benny realising that the Superintendent was present blurted out. “For Christ’s sake shut that bloody door.” Seventy nine patients solemnly responded with “Amen.” and promptly sat down in eager anticipation of their dinner. “I see.” said the Physician Superintendent and walked poker faced from the dining room with the red faced charge trailing in his wake. We never said Grace again after that.

I stood in the doorway and studied him while he, in turn, watched me.  We were finally alone, and I was determined to set some rules. “First, I’d like to clarify that this does not qualify as getting to know each other.  Second, you smell like wet dog.  If you want to continue to sleep in my room, on my bed, you’ll let Rachel give you a bath when she gets home.”  He snorted at that but didn’t get off the bed.  “Third, once I’m awake, you get out.  I know what you are, and I am not changing in front of you.” He outright harrumphed at that one, and I swore I saw a canine smile.  But, he did hop down from the bed.  He left the room with quiet dignity. I closed the door behind him, remade the bed—thankfully, he didn’t appear to shed—and grabbed some clothes.  I had two goals for the day.  First, I needed to figure out how long it would take me to walk to the campus from here.  Then, I needed to learn the bus schedule for the days I ran late or the weather prevented walking.  If worst came to worst, I’d buy a beater car to drive. Opening the door, I was startled to see Clay sitting there patiently waiting for me. “What are you doing?” I asked when he didn’t move.  Of course, he didn’t answer. I eyed him warily and walked past him.  In the kitchen, I grabbed the house key from the counter then moved to the back door.  Clay’s nails clicked on the floor as he followed me. “I’m going for a walk, and you’re staying here,” I said when he made to follow me outside. Clay growled slightly in response. His deep growl gave me pause.  He sounded scary. “Please don’t do that.  Unless you really are trying to scare me.”  His fur continued to bristle, but his growl stopped.  Our relationship wouldn’t go anywhere if he thought he could bully and maneuver me to his way of thinking. “And don’t crab at me.  I’m not the unlicensed dog without a leash.  Do you want me to talk Rachel into buying a pink collar for you?” He coughed out a strangled bark then turned and walked back to the living room. “See you later,” I said, feeling a little smug. The

I see you have modified your interpretation of the rules of decorum in deference to the heat,” the earl noted, helping himself to a glass of lemonade. “Good God!” He held the glass away from him after a single sip. “It isn’t sweetened.” “You helped yourself to my glass,” Anna said, suppressing a smile. She passed him the second glass, from which he took a cautious swallow. She was left to drink from the same glass he’d first appropriated or go back to the kitchen to fetch herself a clean glass. Looking up, she saw the earl watching her with a kind of bemused curiosity, as if he understood her dilemma. She took a hefty swallow of lemonade—and it did have sugar in it, though just a dash—and set her glass on the blotter.

As a rule, men feel they are supposed to know what they're doing when it comes to personal finance, so even when they don't, they often pretend that they do and resist asking for help. As a result, many men wind up making wrong turns onto bumpy back roads that wind up stranding them (and you) 100 miles from Wayne's Kountry Kitchen. Women, on the other hand, have relatively few hangups about admitting it when they don't know something. That's why they can make better investors than men. It's because they don't have any trouble with the idea that they have to have an education in order to be successful. Women are comfortable not only learning and studying but also asking questions—and by asking questions, of course, they learn more

if we’re going to actually come up with robots that will do our laundry or tidy up the kitchen, we’re going to have to make sure that whatever replaces capitalism is based on a far more egalitarian distribution of wealth and power—one that no longer contains either the super-rich or desperately poor people willing to do their housework. Only then will technology begin to be marshaled toward human needs. And this is the best reason to break free of the dead hand of the hedge fund managers and the CEOs—to free our fantasies from the screens in which such men have imprisoned them, to let our imaginations once again become a material force in human history.

(rule: you use it, you clean it).

If a 20% or 30% drop in the market value of your equity holdings (such as BPL) is going to produce emotional or financial distress, you should simply avoid common stock type investments. In the words of the poet—Harry Truman—“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” It is preferable, of course, to consider the problem before you enter the “kitchen.

Humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that people could work or live together without someone being in charge.” “But every human institution that I can think of, from political to business, even down to marriage, is governed by this kind of thinking. It is the web of our social fabric,” Mack asserted. “Such a waste!” said Papa, picking up the empty dish and heading for the kitchen. “It’s one reason why experiencing true relationship is so difficult for you,” Jesus added. “Once you have a hierarchy you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or a system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. You rarely see or experience relationship apart from power. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you.

I planned to spend the day vegging out and watching some good action movies when Aunt Jeanie had to ruin my plans as usual. Just when I had gotten comfortable in my beanbag chair with a bag of Twizzlers, she burst into the bedroom without even knocking. "Aunt Jeanie, I'd appreciate it if you would at least knock," I told her as sweetly as possible. "Bex, this is my house. When you get your own house and pay the mortgage, you can make the rules." I sighed and focused on the television, hoping she would go away, but she wouldn't. "So, have you decided on a service project?" "Yes, but Mrs. Armstrong denied it," I answered. I thought my cupcake idea was great. Cupcakes make people happy and wasn't that the point? "Good. This afternoon some of the girls are going down to the soup kitchen to make bagged lunches for the women and children's shelter. Be ready in a little bit." I loved the way she asked whether or not I'd actually like to do it. "All right.

The dark came down on All Hallows’ Eve. We went to sleep to the sound of howling wind and pelting rain, and woke on the Feast of All Saints to whiteness and large soft flakes falling down and down in absolute silence. There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm. This is the thin time, when the beloved dead draw near. The world turns inward, and the chilling air grows thick with dreams and mystery. The sky goes from a sharp clear cold where a million stars burn bright and close, to the gray-pink cloud that enfolds the earth with the promise of snow. I took one of Bree’s matches from its box and lit it, thrilling to the tiny leap of instant flame, and bent to put it to the kindling. Snow was falling, and winter had come; the season of fire. Candles and hearth fire, that lovely, leaping paradox, that destruction contained but never tamed, held at a safe distance to warm and enchant, but always, still, with that small sense of danger. The smell of roasting pumpkins was thick and sweet in the air. Having ruled the night with fire, the jack-o’-lanterns went now to a more peaceful fate as pies and compost, to join the gentle rest of the earth before renewal. I had turned the earth in my garden the day before, planting the winter seeds to sleep and swell, to dream their buried birth. Now is the time when we reenter the womb of the world, dreaming the dreams of snow and silence. Waking to the shock of frozen lakes under waning moonlight and the cold sun burning low and blue in the branches of the ice-cased trees, returning from our brief and necessary labors to food and story, to the warmth of firelight in the dark. Around a fire, in the dark, all truths can be told, and heard, in safety. I pulled on my woolen stockings, thick petticoats, my warmest shawl, and went down to poke up the kitchen fire. I stood watching wisps of steam rise from the fragrant cauldron, and felt myself turn inward. The world could go away, and we would heal.

Nora sobered and turned back to the windows, her breath fogging the glass. "We may as well lay some ground rules if we're going to be stuck here for a few days." "Okay." "You can keep the bed, I prefer the sofa. I don't cook. I'm not a maid, so pick up after yourself. You can eat whatever you can find in the kitchen, but I'll warn you, I don't keep much. I prefer my privacy, so you'll have to occupy yourself. Any questions? "Only one." She turned to face him. "What are you hiding from?

But then Donny called her name from the kitchen, and she remembered rules number one and two. She said, “Do you see how I’m wearing this apron? It means I’m working. For a living.” The unconcerned expression didn’t flag. He said, “I’ll take care of it.” She echoed, “Take care of it?” “Yeah. How much do you make in an hour? I’ll take care of it. And I’ll talk to your manager.” For a moment, Blue was actually lost for words. She had never believed people who claimed to be speechless, but she was. She opened her mouth, and at first, all that came out was air. Then something like the beginning of a laugh. Then, finally, she managed to sputter, “I am not a prostitute.” The Aglionby boy appeared puzzled for a long moment, and then realization dawned. “Oh, that was not how I meant it. That is not what I said.” “That is what you said! You think you can just pay me to talk to your friend? Clearly you pay most of your female companions by the hour and don’t know how it works with the real world, but … but …” Blue remembered that she was working to a point, but not what that point was. Indignation had eliminated all higher functions and all that remained was the desire to slap him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, and her thought came back to her all in a rush. “Most girls, when they’re interested in a guy, will sit with them for free.

Now, whenever she had to leave him, be it for only a few minutes, Caro was seized by an annoying bout of dizziness. Mark would have liked to come along, but, a long time ago, Caro had set the rules in place and she was not about to change them on the spur of the moment. The rules had proved safe and efficient. As long as they were followed to the letter, the chances of success were not diminished while the chances of discovery were minimized. She found the key and locked the service door from inside. She stopped briefly on the stair landing, to give herself a few seconds to think of her next step. The aroma of spiced food wafted from the restaurant's kitchen, mingled with the sour fragrance of demi-sec wine spilled from a broken bottle. Slowly, her mind and body adjusted to the environment. She was ready now. The staircase was unlit. Caro did not switch on

Now, whenever she had to leave him, be it for only a few minutes, Caro was seized by an annoying bout of dizziness. Mark would have liked to come along, but, a long time ago, Caro had set the rules in place and she was not about to change them on the spur of the moment. The rules had proved safe and efficient. As long as they were followed to the letter, the chances of success were not diminished while the chances of discovery were minimized. She found the key and locked the service door from inside. She stopped briefly on the stair landing, to give herself a few seconds to think of her next step. The aroma of spiced food wafted from the restaurant's kitchen, mingled with the sour fragrance of demi-sec wine spilled from a broken bottle. Slowly, her mind and body adjusted to the environment. She was ready now. The staircase was unlit. Caro did not switch on the light, but inched up slowly through the dark, careful not to touch any surface, especially the walls or the handrail. She was feeling her way up slowly.

But Stanovich sees it differently. In his book, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, he coined the term “dysrationalia”—the inability to think and behave rationally despite having high intelligence. Research in cognitive psychology suggests there are two principal causes of dysrationalia. The first is a processing problem. The second is a content problem. Stanovich believes we process poorly. When solving a problem, he says, people have several different cognitive mechanisms to choose from. At one end of the spectrum are mechanisms with great computational power, but they are slow and require a great deal of concentration. At the opposite end of the spectrum are mechanisms that have low computational power, require very little concentration, and make quick action possible. “Humans are cognitive misers,” Stanovich writes, “because our basic tendency is to default to the processing mechanisms that require less computational effort, even if they are less accurate.”9 In a word, humans are lazy thinkers. They take the easy way out when solving problems and as a result, their solutions are often illogical. The second cause of dysrationalia is the lack of adequate content. Psychologists who study decision making refer to content deficiency as a “mindware gap.” First articulated by David Perkins, a Harvard cognitive scientist, mindware refers to the rules, strategies, procedures, and knowledge people have at their mental disposal to help solve a problem. “Just as kitchenware consists in tools for working in the kitchen, and software consists in tools for working with your computer, mindware consists in the tools for the mind,” explains Perkins. “A piece of mindware is anything a person can learn that extends the person’s general powers to think critically and creatively.

The Penultimate Hotel by Stewart Stafford Enter sluggishly into the lobby, A banquet is in progress in the restaurant, They’re regurgitating reality from within, And then eating their young. An apocalyptic porter has radioactive cubes in the lift, Housekeeping will have ten thousand years of light, But the sheets in the rooms, Will all turn to cream cheese. The cooks in the kitchen are breaking bones and rules, Creating a cake that stretches to infinity, Babel babble with protesting eggs, All baked in a hellfire oven. The concierge gives out tips, And tells guests they are awful and to leave, While simultaneously tattooing diabolical potion recipes, Inside a willing bellhop’s eyelids. © 2021, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.